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A public consultation on the long-term solution to tariffs paid under the non-domestic Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) is to begin within the next three weeks.
Legislation to cut RHI tariffs was approved by the NI Assembly in January 2017 after overspend from the scheme emerged. Tiered and capped tariffs were initially introduced for one year until a longer-term solution was found, but this was extended for another 12 months in March 2018.
The upcoming consultation will last 12 weeks and the Department for the Economy (DfE) is aiming to have the long-term regulations in place by the time the extended temporary regulations expire in April 2019.
Consultancy firm Ricardo AEA has been hired by DfE to review the RHI scheme and make suggestions ahead of the consultation.
It is understood the consultants have looked at various measures such as annual caps on payments, and different levels of tiering, where payments reduce as the amount of heat produced by a boiler passes certain thresholds.
Ricardo has also reviewed the tariff bands which allow different levels of payment for various sizes of installations.
The tariff cuts introduced by DfE in the temporary legislation in 2017 are the subject of ongoing legal proceedings in the Court of Appeal by the group representing RHI claimants, the Renewable Heat Association for NI (RHANI). Their main argument is that the tariff rates were originally guaranteed for 20 years.
Installations
There are around 1,800 boilers affected by the tariff cuts, and RHANI’s 536 members own 1,316 of these installations. The group’s executive chair Andrew Trimble believes that RHANI is therefore in a strong position to influence the upcoming consultation.
Trimble told the Irish Farmers Journal that the organisation could consider accepting new long-term tariffs which reduce payments through the mechanisms recently reviewed by Ricardo AEA, such as tiered or capped tariffs.
“We could consider going to that scheme, but those aren’t the rights that the current scheme members enjoyed. To move from one arrangement to another, we will require compensation,” Trimble said.
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