Charging for biomass heat

Beefsmith

Member
We’ve a tenant in the yard who’s enquired about us plumbing into our biomass boiler (only used for grain drying and farmhouse presently) to get heat into his unit. I’m waiting on prices from the installer to do the job for us but need to have an idea of what we can potentially charge him for using the heat. He’d have a meter in the unit on a thermostat so it would be a simple system. We’d pay to get the pipe into the shed then he’d pay for some heater blowers in the main part and radiators in his offices. The deal is if he leaves we get the installed heating system left in the shed at no cost which would be added into his lease. I don’t want to take the mickey as he’s a good tenant and been here 10 years. I’m thinking a simple charge per kwh is where we need to be. It’s a straw fed boiler and from Oct - March is only heating the farmhouse so his unit won’t add any extra work from my point of view really.
 

555

Member
Location
Cambridge
A warm tenant is a happy tenant. You will be benefitting from a few extra pennies from the RHI I expect. So charge him cost of fuel. Say 1500kw of heat per 500kg bale at £30 a bale - £0.02 pence per kw
 

Beefsmith

Member
A warm tenant is a happy tenant. You will be benefitting from a few extra pennies from the RHI I expect. So charge him cost of fuel. Say 1500kw of heat per 500kg bale at £30 a bale - £0.02 pence per kw

Thanks. 1500kw seems low from a straw bale. We seem to get about double that off fresh straw. Year old straw a bit less. I’d got in my head about 6p as he currently paying for elec heaters at 16p/kwh.
 

blackisleboy

Member
Livestock Farmer
He will soon be paying a whole lot more than 16p for electric.....
But as someone else said, a warm tenant is a happy tenant.
I would look to fix an annual price that moves relative to cost of your fuel for boiler - in your case base it on price of a tonne of straw. so if straw is £30/tonne, charge him say 3p per unit, but if it rises to £60 charge him 6p.
 

___\0/___

Member
Location
SW Scotland
You were probably going to anyway but make sure the updated Schematic, etc is all up to date with ofgem once the job is complete.
Think you should be alright as you are using the for drying to qualify as commercial/non domestic but ofgem are supposedly a bit unhappy when during an inspection they discover that the heated workshop is just an empty shed. As I said think you will be OK but worth checking if the guy leaves and you have everything set up whether in an empty shed you will get away with photos of the meter on the day the guy left (to show you aren't heating an empty space) or have to do more. Think that makes sense, basically saying you might not be able to claim RHI on that meter if he leaves and the building is empty.
 

Beefsmith

Member
He will soon be paying a whole lot more than 16p for electric.....
But as someone else said, a warm tenant is a happy tenant.
I would look to fix an annual price that moves relative to cost of your fuel for boiler - in your case base it on price of a tonne of straw. so if straw is £30/tonne, charge him say 3p per unit, but if it rises to £60 charge him 6p.
3 year fixed deal signed in March.
 

335d

Member
Bear in mind your tenant is paying for the kit in the unit, and will ultimately be looking to save money. You need to understand how much it will cost to purchase and install the new equipment, then say split that cost over 3 years. If you know how many kWh he is using a year, then Work out a fair price for you and the tenant, so that the tenant sees a decent saving, and you make some more money.
 
So if kero is say 50p/litre how do you work it back to straw in p/kwh? I’m having a being thick day 🤷🏻‍♂️


I charge 5p/kWh if oil is 50p/litre, keeps maths easy.

a round bale used to give me 400-600 kWh on average so £25 a bale

add in the RHI and the figures get exciting.

just make sure you know their likely heat use per annum, if you go over tier 1 then obviously RHI is much less.

my tenants love it, it’s hassle free, deemed as green and renewable and not overly expensive.

it also makes future lettings much more attractive. Especially if you have PV rigged up in the same way.
 

Matt

Member
We’ve a tenant in the yard who’s enquired about us plumbing into our biomass boiler (only used for grain drying and farmhouse presently) to get heat into his unit. I’m waiting on prices from the installer to do the job for us but need to have an idea of what we can potentially charge him for using the heat. He’d have a meter in the unit on a thermostat so it would be a simple system. We’d pay to get the pipe into the shed then he’d pay for some heater blowers in the main part and radiators in his offices. The deal is if he leaves we get the installed heating system left in the shed at no cost which would be added into his lease. I don’t want to take the mickey as he’s a good tenant and been here 10 years. I’m thinking a simple charge per kwh is where we need to be. It’s a straw fed boiler and from Oct - March is only heating the farmhouse so his unit won’t add any extra work from my point of view really.
we charge a tenant for heat. be it more domestic. price of kerosene divided by 10 as I believe 10kwh in 1 L.
 

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