Renewable Heat Incentive and Renewable Fuel Standards: A Review

This article reviews the Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) and Renewable Fuel Standards (RFS) programs in the UK and USA respectively, and their relevance to the Paris Climate Agreement. It discusses the key elements of the agreement, financial resources, methodology, and inherent issues in second-generation biorefineries.

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INTRODUCTION
Production of pollutants including carbon emission can be attributed to the type of fuel that is
normally put into use. The rate of production has been increased by the industrial growth in
developing countries. In order to have the impact of these gases reduced, most of the countries
have enacted regulations that have since helped to conserve the environment. Some of these
initiatives are evident in countries like the United States of America and the United Kingdom.
The Renewable Heat Incentive commonly known as RHI was started in the year 2011 to assist in
boosting the rates of low carbon and renewable heating in the UK. United States has equally
adopted a program of Renewable Fuel Standards commonly known as RFS(Bailey, 2017). This
kind of program requires the transportation system of the US to use only those fuels that contain
a minimum volume of fuel that can be renewed. The establishment of RFS was done by the
Energy Policy Act of the years 2005. The expansion of the same policies was done in the year
2007 by the introduction of Energy Independence and Scrutiny. In the by the year 2006, the
initiative had exploited d over 4 billion gallons of the renewable sources of fuel. The aim of this
project is to meet over 36billion by the year 2022.
This initiative however has since failed to meet the objectives for which it was started. The
initiative was expected to provide the value of money equivalent to $23 billion. The design of the
Renewable Heat Incentive was to encourage businesses and households to switch from heating
systems using fossil fuels to other alternatives with little carbon emission(Börzel 2017). The
participants in this particular project are provided with the funds to invest in other technologies
like the used of heat pumps, boilers, and aerobic digester plants. Most of these systems are
capable of producing methane gasses that are injected into the grid system of the state. The cost
of reduction of RHI is usually met by the taxpayers of the United Kingdom through the exercise

of taxation. Both RFS of USA and RHI of the UK work in the complement of the policies and
terms of Paris Agreement.
LITERATURE REVIEW
The Paris Climate Deal COP21
This deal unites all the nations of the world in a single agreement in dealing with the changes in
the climate. It has been done for the first time ever since in history. Many observers have
regarded it as history of consensus by nearly 200 countries to cut the emission of greenhouse
gases. Prior to the existence of this kind of agreement, there was the Kyoto protocol that was
established in the year 1997. The aim was to set targets for cutting emissions but most countries
failed to comply and the US pulled out of the same. Scholars have argued that the agreement of
Paris must be stepped up if it is really interested in addressing the ever-rising temperatures of the
globe. The agreements have a good structured program and layout roadmap that will assist to
speed up the progress.
Key Elements of the Agreements/EU target of climate
o To have the global temperatures kept well below 2 degrees as compared to the commonly
known pre-industrial times and strives to have even a lower level of 1.5 degrees.
o To reduce the quantity of the greenhouse gases that are emitted by the activities of human
beings to the level that can be absorbed by the trees and oceans beginning at some point
between the years 2050 and 2100.
o To conduct a review of the contribution of each and every state in the cutting down of
emissions afar a period of every 5 years.

o The rich countries to assist the poor states by facilitating the provision of climate funds to
be used in the adoption of renewable energy initiative and address to the climatic change.
The relevance of RHI and RFS to Paris agreement.
These suggestions of Paris agreements will remain mere paperwork should they fail to be put
into practice. The participant countries are therefore expected to develop initiatives that help in
the implementation of this program. For countries like the UK and USA very robust programs of
RHI and RFS have been developed in these countries respectively. These ideas are expected to
spread and become the subject of adoption to other member countries(Bosserhoff et al.2014).
Financial Resources and Methodology
The cost of reduction of RHI is usually met by the taxpayers of the United Kingdom through the
exercise of taxation. Both RFS of USA and RHI of the UK work in the complement of the
policies and terms of Paris Agreement. The main goal of the Paris agreement has been to prevent
what has been regarded by scientists as irreversible and dangerous levels of the changes in the
climate. This has been judged to be reached at around 2 degrees Celsius.This was regarded to be
the central point to this particular agreement.Research indicates that the world is almost half this
digit. Most countries argued for a tougher target of 1.5 degrees. This kind of argument included
the leaders of the low-lying countries that affect sea levels that are subject to fluctuations as
global warming continues(Davies 2017).
In the entire process of negotiation, the sticking point has been money. The countries that are
developing have maintained that they actually need technical assistance and finance to leapfrog
fossil fuels. This will enable them to adopt immediately the use of renewable sources of energy.
These countries have currently been promised over US$100bn funding for every year till 2025. It

has been indicated in the deal that wealthy states should continue to provide support for those
nations that are poor so as to enable them to cope up with the changes in the climate. It is
important to note that only elements of the Paris agreement are binding legally, the pledges by
the countries to cut emissions should be considered voluntary. The attempts to take tougher
actions in similar effects have contributed to the collapse of several talks of the same kind.
In the United States of America, there is a similar program called Renewable Fuel Standards.
This kind of program requires the transportation system of the US to use only those fuels that
contain a minimum volume of fuel that can be renewed. The establishment of RFS was done by
the Energy Policy Act of the years 2005. The expansion of the same policies was done in the
year 2007 by the introduction of Energy Independence and Scrutiny. In the by the year 2006, the
initiate had exploited d over 4 billion gallons of the renewable sources of fuel. The aim of this
project is to meet over 36billion by the year 2022. The Environmental Protection Agency has all
the authorities just any other statutory in the determination of the volume by the year 2022. The
target of the renewable fuel statutory is actually made of advanced biofuel and conventional
biofuel. Since the year 2014, the target of the RFS has not been met. This has actually the portion
of biofuel falling below the target of the statutory by a very big margin in the year 2015
METHODOLOGY
The intent of RHI and RFS
At the Paris climate Conference that was dabbed COP21 held in the year 2015, over 195
countries participated. The agreement was on the adoption of universal and legal binding issues
related to climate change. The governments collectively agreed to have a long term solution in
keeping the ever-increasing global temperatures below by at least 2 degrees. The aim was to

have this reduction to achieve up to 1.5 degrees. Also, the governments agreed to boost the
abilities of societies to deal with the impacts of the changes in the climate(Lenaerts 2017).
This would ensure that there is continued support for international adaption and support for the
developing countries. The agreement of Paris will actually lead to the realization of a 55%
reduction of the global emissions if fully implements. Europe is regarded as the global leader in
the changes in climate. This region is regarded as the first one to have binding targets. The
region has resumed the targets of being the leader with the renewables. It is possible to have this
target achieved(Lenaerts 2017).
From the available records from the year 1990 to 2014, the emissions have declined by almost
23%. The GDP, on the other hand, has grown to 46%. Climate change has seriously threatened to
interfere with the livelihood of living organisms hence leading to the destabilization of the
societies. Once this kind of disruption come into effect, the development will no longer be kept
on track. The single impact of the changes in climate will include migration of millions of people
along the shoreline and other coastal areas. Agriculture and coastal flooding will be just a crisis
in making. Continued emission of these dangerous gases will lead to further warming and
another permanent in all aspects of the system of the climate...

Figure 1: Layout of RHI(Lundqvist 2018).
The administration of RFS is being done EPA and it is responsible for several tasks. The
management programs include determination and evaluation of the kind of renewable fuel which
are considered fit for the program of RFS(Boyes and Elliott 2014). Another primary duty
includes determining the amount of fuel that will be needed in the coming years as per the rate of
supply. This will include other conditions that waiver the operation of the statute aimed at
reducing volumes that may be deemed necessary. The statute requires that any administrator of
EPA do the reset of RFS where possible. This will include cases where the required volume is
modified in the event that certain standards are not met in the future. The compliance of RFS is
monitored by EPA through the use of tradable credit system called renewable identification
numbers commonly abbreviated as RINS. The ongoing interest has been expressed by the
Congress is far as RFS is concerned.

In the case of the case of RHI, the department of Industrial Strategy, Energy and Business does
not appear to have taken into consideration the reasons for the consumer to the choices of heat.
This has led to the development of initiatives of heat strategy. An effective strategy of heat
should be joined up to boost the policy network of heat across globe. This will extend to heat
decarburization, the efficiency of energy research and development, building regulations and
quality. It is possible that the boilers and heat pumps may not be the answer to all the countries
under this similar program(Qiu and Jones 2013).
The department should, therefore, consider other programs as alternatives.The truth of the matter
is that this kind of program will not work for those businesses or households that cannot
effectively pay for the cost of renewable equipment that is low carbon in applications. The

specific targeted fuel types will include oil boilers and another gas type of boilers. These boilers
have since remained to be popular as a result of being cheap and available across the country.
Inherent Issues
Second Generation Biorefineries handling
The production of fuel from materials of food grade has actually become a topic of controversy
considering that there are millions of people in the world that do not have access to food. The
research has now been focused on the production by the use of technology of the second
generation. This kind of technology supports the production of fuels from industrial fuels and
other dedicated energy crops. The production process does not only support the fuel production
but also a similar chemical of such kinds. The other materials that can be targeted for the
production of fuel may include the use of the forest products and agricultural residue(Hildebrand
2014).
The conversion of the biomass into biofuel takes into account the two possible routes. One of
these routes is known as the thermochemical process. This process is commonly referred to as
BTL process which is the same as biomass to the liquid conversion process. During the process
of BTL, biomass is subjected to pyrolysis or a process called gasification.The process of
gasification allows for the production of syngas. Syngas is a mixture of the carbon monoxide and
hydrogen. The conversion of these gases into fuel is normally achieved by the use of catalytic
processes like Fischer-Tropsch reactions.
Other conversion processes may be achieved through biological means. The second route of
conversion may be treated as the biochemical process. This process targets the sugar polymers
that are present in the biomass like cellulose and hemicellulose to produce sugars that are

monomeric. The monomeric sugars can be fermented by microorganisms to enable the
production of fuels. The other alternative routes involve the production of a chemical
intermediate through a biochemical process before they are transformed into a product of higher
value by the use of thermochemical routes. The investments from the government agencies, there
has been intensive research by both RFS and RHI in the invention of novel technologies. This
has accelerated the production of biofuels of the second generation. Some of the developments
that are noticeable have included the establishment of the center of bioenergy(Gezahegn, Mullick
and Jain 2014).
These centers have been dedicated to the scientific research and evaluation of the cost-effective
biofuels that subsequently leads to novel technologies. Although the two initiatives that are both
the RHI and RFS strive to maintain this particular technology, the cost of production has since
remained to be very high. Actually, these kinds of fuels are at least 3 times more expensive as
compared to those fuels from petroleum. In order to ensure that the cost of production is brought
down, there is need to address several challenges which are involved in the conversion of the
biomass of lignocellulosic to chemicals and biofuels by the use of the platforms of biochemicals.
Some of the most common challenges are encountered in:
 Feedstock production
 Feedstock logistics
 Development of technologies that are energy efficient
 Establishment of the standards of the biochemical and biofuels
 Distribution of the biofuels
 Acceptance of these products in society
 Minimization of the environmental impacts

 Development of the crop products
All these issues require expertise in biomass logistics, engineering processes, and technology of
conversion, chemistry, and agronomy.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS
Encountered Issues by Implementing of RFS and RHI
The administration of RFS is done by EPA. This kind of responsibility includes evaluation of the
pathways of renewable fuels eligible for the applications of RFS. Also, it is expected that EPA
evaluates the ability of the industry of biofuel to ensure that there is the production of enough
fuel which meets the volume of the annual standards and subsequently releases the annual
standards as per the findings of the research work. EPA also ensures that there is strict
compliance of the annual standards by the involved parties. All the above-listed requirements
must be completed yearly while considering suggestions from the agencies of the government,
decisions of the court and the public opinion.
For several months after the issuance of RFS final rule in the year 2010, there have been
difficulties in the projection of specific volume requirements by EPA. This agency has therefore
been left with no other option but to utilize waiver authority in setting the requirements of
cellulosic biofuels, total renewable biofuels some of which have been different from what was
stated initially in the statute(Stone 2013). There have been several legal challenges that have
been brought against EPA in regard to the annual projections of fuel volumetric. For examples,
there was a case in court by the American Petroleum Institute in which they objected cellulosic
biofuel production by EPA in 2012. This was later vacated and followed by the provision of
principles for EPA to apply for the future annual projections.

The best alternatives to petroleum-based fuels are the biofuels that have been produced from bio-
based materials. Such kind of fuel offered several benefits to society and the environment at
large. The production of the second generation biofuel is normally known to be more challenging
as compared to the production of the first generation biofuel. This is as a result of the complexity
of the issues that were related to the production and biomass itself. Besides the logistic
challenges, the other challenges include the conversion of the same biomass to liquid so that it
can be transported like fuel for hydrolysis, pretreatments,, and microbial fermentation.The
possible products that are usually produced in the biorefinery and their significance is to aid in
the reduction of the processing costs.
The aspect of the final rule was also subject to challenge in courts by Americans for Clean
Energy. The shortage of timely rulemaking, as well as a projection in the volume which are not
accurate, can possibly affect the private investment according to the producers of advanced
biofuel. This has further slowed down the USA compliance pace to the Paris Agreement(Thorne
and Blandford 2017). While the establishment of RHI has been successful in the identification of
the problems through the mechanical workshop, this technique does not neatly fall within the
phase of construction in the build. Also, there exists uncertainty for various contractors as to
where the meters should be located or positioned to achieve RHI standards for the accreditation
process. This further affects or frustrates the UK’s effort to comply with the Paris agreements on
environmental conservation. In order to have the objectives of the Paris Conference met within
the stipulated period, the requirements and the ideas of RHI and RFS must be put into use. The
requirements of RFS are to ensure that at least fuel for transportation contains the very little
volume of renewable fuel(Buller, Wilson and Holl 2017). The average renewable fuel statutory
has both biofuel which is conventional and biofuel type that is advanced. The targets have been

set despite the failure to meet the objectives by the year 2014. This could be attributed to the
wider margin witnessed in the by the year 2015. As from the trend that can be seen in recent
times, it is possible that the USA will meet the target of total renewable fuel as had been
illustrated in the statute. Despite the above challenges, the impact of RHI and RFS are yet to be
felt in the respective countries as a result of reduced carbon emission. For quick results, it would
have been better for the EU to adopt the use of RHI since it is easy to implement no wonder it
has become popular within a short time. This means that it will take little effort to have its effects
felt.
CONCLUSION
The examination of RFS and RHI frameworks and exploration of the options of the renewable
energy sources while using real-world project clearly indicate the possibility of saving the globe
from overheating. This can be used to meet the targets of climate changes. The effective
implementation of RHI and RFS should take into account vigorous processes like accreditation
in various stages and proper planning(Vasco, Khanal, Manandhar and Shah 2018). This should
be done at the fastest rate possible for the count down towards recommended temperatures to be
met. Their implementation should consider strategic integration that allows for wider uptake of
renewable sources of energy. It is important to note that failure to put these technologies into
practice including other relevant measures will see the global temperature rising. The time has,
therefore, come for decisive actions to be taken. Acting against the changes in climate should be
treated as an imperative of the environment as well as an opportunity for economic growth by
citizens in various countries.

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