The BSL is nothing more than a corporate protection racket. The BSL offers nothing to you the consumer in terms of quality, none of the money it charges goes to the government or the taxpayer, it all goes to a private company called Gemserv which is owned by the power companies.

The BSL does not guarantee quality in any way, all it is there for is to apparently check legality and sustainability of biomass fuel. All it really is 4 people sat at some computers in Gemserv offices in London inputting data into a database and chasing fees. 

Most of the biomass fuel used in the UK comes from abroad, countries like Russia and the Baltics, yet the BSL has not carried out one overseas audit, some overseas pellets could be being made form the rarest trees in the world on dodgy paperwork and the BSL wouldn’t know, because they have never been abroad once because it costs too much.

The BSL forces consumers who had boilers installed before 2015 to buy of a list of suppliers who pay money to the BSL to be on the list, even though this was not part of the RHI contract at the time. They are restricting consumers choice and breaching antitrust laws. Pre 2015, those customers who entered into the RHI did so knowing they would be able to buy their pellets from anyone they wanted, those consumers are now being forced to buy from a list that is effectively a cartel, and if we dont pay money to a private company we wont be on the list. We have been selling the same pellets to the same customer for years, and now unless we pay money to the BSL those customers cannot buy of us.

For 10 years we have been buying our pellets from 2 British plants, both built with government funding, yet the BSL say those pellets may now not be legal or sustainable, unless we pay them money. If we pay them money they become legal and sustainable again, Im not sure how a private company can regulate legality.

Balcas our supplier must also pay a BSL fee when they distribute the pellets to us, and we must pay a fee when we send them to our customers, so the BSL wins two ways.

We must share information about our business, such as sales numbers, suppliers, to a company whose shareholders are also involved in renewable energy, and we have to pay them to give them this information.

Our suggestion has been that British produced pellets are subject to no charge and an increased fee on imported pellets applied, and the people who had RHI contracts before the legislation came in in 2015 are not restricted to buying of the BSL list as it was not part of the requirement when they installed the boiler.

We will post an update soon.

If you want to contact Gemserv.     [email protected]

Or the Government contact  [email protected]