Boiler owners being ‘sacrificed’ to make officials

BOILER owners who are using the Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) in a legitimate manner are enduring a “nightmare” of repeated inspections with constantly changing criteria designed to “catch people out,” the head of a lobby group has claimed.

Andrew Trimble is executive chairman of the Renewable Heat Association Northern Ireland (RHANI), which represents almost 550 people who own boilers on the RHI.

He said that some members whose boilers have passed inspections are being subjected to repeated “hugely stressful” tests in what he believes is a bid to slash the number of claimants.

He claims that some boiler owners have undergone two to three inspections in less than a year, with payments suspended over “minor technicalities”. In the autumn of 2016, nearly 300 boilers were inspected by PwC, and issues were identified in over half of them. The details of the PwC investigation were passed to Ofgem for investigation. In August 2017, the Department for the Economy (DfE) appointed Ricardo Energy and Environment to undertake Phase 1 of an inspection programme, which has been completed. Contractors Greenview Gas, Totalis Solutions and Element Consultants are working on the next phase of inspections under a framework agreement.

The DfE says that 10-15 boilers are currently being inspected each week, meaning it could take until April 2022 to inspect the remaining boilers.

“It has been horrific for the boiler owners,” Mr Trimble (below) said. “We have zero tolerance for fraud, we aren’t saying inspections shouldn’t take place, but we also have zero tolerance for incompetence. “With the tests they keep changing the audit process, every time people pass it they change it to catch them out.

“It started with the inspections under PwC, then it