BSL Fees. How does it affect you?

[HertsWood]

I am a producer/trader on BSL for both firewood and WoodFuel pellets (in addition to other Woodfuel accreditations)

 

As I have a number of RHI customers, who purchase both pellets and firewood, I will be continuing with the BSL scheme.

[Chalgravesteve]

I rang the BSL Helpline today as I have been intending to query something with them for a while, since they started the suggestion of charges.

 

Firstly, I'm a producer/trader as I use my own seasoned logs in my own RHI biomass boiler. I only sell kiln dried, I don't sell seasoned at all.

 

I'm a Small/Micro company, which means my annual fees will be £120 per annum. We haven't got to the tonnage sold start date yet, but in the last Sept/Oct/Nov period, I've sold just over 120m3 of kiln dried logs.

 

I'm based in Bedfordshire and almost all of my customers have woodburning stoves.

Now, it was bugging me that in the three years that I have been selling kiln dried, and I was accredited and on the BSL right from the start, I have only ever been asked for the BSL numbers to be on the invoice, because the purchaser was claiming Domestic RHI, ONCE. That customer bought a few loads from us, but he wanted greater bulk and cheaper price, so I haven't had an order from him this year.

 

So, essentially, 99.9% of my customers have no interest in the BSL number, they just want kiln dried firewood for their woodburning stove. They don't claim DRHI.

 

So I asked the BSL helpdesk, how I should be calculating the tonnage/m3 supplied, in terms of is it every scrap of firewood I sell, or do I only calculate to tonnage/m3 sold to people requiring the BSL number.

 

Amazingly, I got the answer I wanted! If I sell my kiln dried firewood to customers who need a BSL accredited number, I have to declare that. If I sell my kiln dried firewood to the general public for use in their non RHI woodburners/open fires, I don't need to declare that and I don't pay any tonnage/m3 fees on that element.

 

So, I'll have to pay the £120 a year registration fee so I can use my own seasoned in my own RHI boiler, but I'm unlikely to have any further charges for tonnage/m3.

[kevinjohnsonmbe]

I rang the BSL Helpline today as I have been intending to query something with them for a while, since they started the suggestion of charges.

 

 

 

Firstly, I'm a producer/trader as I use my own seasoned logs in my own RHI biomass boiler. I only sell kiln dried, I don't sell seasoned at all.

 

 

 

I'm a Small/Micro company, which means my annual fees will be £120 per annum. We haven't got to the tonnage sold start date yet, but in the last Sept/Oct/Nov period, I've sold just over 120m3 of kiln dried logs.

 

 

 

I'm based in Bedfordshire and almost all of my customers have woodburning stoves.

 

Now, it was bugging me that in the three years that I have been selling kiln dried, and I was accredited and on the BSL right from the start, I have only ever been asked for the BSL numbers to be on the invoice, because the purchaser was claiming Domestic RHI, ONCE. That customer bought a few loads from us, but he wanted greater bulk and cheaper price, so I haven't had an order from him this year.

 

 

 

So, essentially, 99.9% of my customers have no interest in the BSL number, they just want kiln dried firewood for their woodburning stove. They don't claim DRHI.

 

 

 

So I asked the BSL helpdesk, how I should be calculating the tonnage/m3 supplied, in terms of is it every scrap of firewood I sell, or do I only calculate to tonnage/m3 sold to people requiring the BSL number.

 

 

 

Amazingly, I got the answer I wanted! If I sell my kiln dried firewood to customers who need a BSL accredited number, I have to declare that. If I sell my kiln dried firewood to the general public for use in their non RHI woodburners/open fires, I don't need to declare that and I don't pay any tonnage/m3 fees on that element.

 

 

 

So, I'll have to pay the £120 a year registration fee so I can use my own seasoned in my own RHI boiler, but I'm unlikely to have any further charges for tonnage/m3.

 

 

Sounds completely logical! You must have spoken to the duty intelligent person! I got the idiot that thought they could "solve" the problem without listening to the issues! Must be 1 clever to every 20 muppets!

 

Did you wait long for someone to answer? 10 mins on hold for me!

[Chalgravesteve]

Sounds completely logical! You must have spoken to the duty intelligent person! I got the idiot that thought they could "solve" the problem without listening to the issues! Must be 1 clever to every 20 muppets!

 

Did you wait long for someone to answer? 10 mins on hold for me!

 

Answered in about 6 minutes......

[skyhuck]

I rang the BSL Helpline today as I have been intending to query something with them for a while, since they started the suggestion of charges.

 

Firstly, I'm a producer/trader as I use my own seasoned logs in my own RHI biomass boiler. I only sell kiln dried, I don't sell seasoned at all.

 

I'm a Small/Micro company, which means my annual fees will be £120 per annum. We haven't got to the tonnage sold start date yet, but in the last Sept/Oct/Nov period, I've sold just over 120m3 of kiln dried logs.

 

I'm based in Bedfordshire and almost all of my customers have woodburning stoves.

Now, it was bugging me that in the three years that I have been selling kiln dried, and I was accredited and on the BSL right from the start, I have only ever been asked for the BSL numbers to be on the invoice, because the purchaser was claiming Domestic RHI, ONCE. That customer bought a few loads from us, but he wanted greater bulk and cheaper price, so I haven't had an order from him this year.

 

So, essentially, 99.9% of my customers have no interest in the BSL number, they just want kiln dried firewood for their woodburning stove. They don't claim DRHI.

 

So I asked the BSL helpdesk, how I should be calculating the tonnage/m3 supplied, in terms of is it every scrap of firewood I sell, or do I only calculate to tonnage/m3 sold to people requiring the BSL number.

 

Amazingly, I got the answer I wanted! If I sell my kiln dried firewood to customers who need a BSL accredited number, I have to declare that. If I sell my kiln dried firewood to the general public for use in their non RHI woodburners/open fires, I don't need to declare that and I don't pay any tonnage/m3 fees on that element.

 

So, I'll have to pay the £120 a year registration fee so I can use my own seasoned in my own RHI boiler, but I'm unlikely to have any further charges for tonnage/m3.

 

The fee is for fuel burnt on appliances generating RHI, what made you think you would need to pay it on any other fuel?

[Chalgravesteve]

The fee is for fuel burnt on appliances generating RHI, what made you think you would need to pay it on any other fuel?

 

The original advice I was given to complete the quarterly returns, was that I simply told them what tonnage/m3 we consumed ourselves to power our RHI boiler and what tonnage/m3 of kiln dried we sold in the same period.

 

As I didn't have to pay any fees etc, it was just a matter of calculating the figures and entering them in the form, it made no odds to me if it was BSL or non BSL, and they said the total we produced.

 

Once it became a charge per tonnage/m3 I had a more vested interest in whether it was BSL/non BSL.

[County 764]

There's no need to include sales to non RHI customers on the quarterly reports, Why would they be interested in that?

 

Most firewood guys are on the BSL as they are claiming RHI themselves.

 

That's why most will be including a huge volume sold in the last quarter. Why claim over the next year or so and pay extra fees? Nobody checks and you make up your own paperwork.

[MonsterMonster]

The original advice I was given to complete the quarterly returns, was that I simply told them what tonnage/m3 we consumed ourselves to power our RHI boiler and what tonnage/m3 of kiln dried we sold in the same period.

 

As I didn't have to pay any fees etc, it was just a matter of calculating the figures and entering them in the form, it made no odds to me if it was BSL or non BSL, and they said the total we produced.

 

Once it became a charge per tonnage/m3 I had a more vested interest in whether it was BSL/non BSL.

If I'm right the only fuel you should have registered under BSL is the seasoned logs that you burn in your RHI boiler and the kiln dried stuff has nothing to do with BSL assuming that it was not your intention to sell BSL kiln dried. When you apply for a fuel to be authorised under BSL they ask for your expected production volume for the next 12 months. I suppose the BSL will compare your declared future production with the quarterly sales volume and if they don't tally they might ask questions or audit.

 

It all seems utter red tape crap.

 

Sent from my Alba 10" using Tapatalk

[ash_smith123]

If the 120 odd quid a year and 9p a m3 bothers you that much I suppose you probably shouldn't be on the BSL. In the grand scheme of things it's a tiny amount of money.

I see it as a form of advertising, How much do eBay charge for 7 days? how much do auto trader charge to put a car on for a week? £40+ Does anyone moan about that? I've put a 1/4 page advert for a month in a very local paper for £150 before and got nothing from it.

I've sold a few hundred cubic metres of BSL fuel over the last few years. I've had orders of 50+ cubic metres at a time at full price so if paying £120+ a year for me to advertise on a website that someone tomorrow could call up and order 50+ cubic metres, to me that seems pretty good value.

[kevinjohnsonmbe]

If the 120 odd quid a year and 9p a m3 bothers you that much I suppose you probably shouldn't be on the BSL. In the grand scheme of things it's a tiny amount of money.

I see it as a form of advertising, How much do eBay charge for 7 days? how much do auto trader charge to put a car on for a week? £40+ Does anyone moan about that? I've put a 1/4 page advert for a month in a very local paper for £150 before and got nothing from it.

I've sold a few hundred cubic metres of BSL fuel over the last few years. I've had orders of 50+ cubic metres at a time at full price so if paying £120+ a year for me to advertise on a website that someone tomorrow could call up and order 50+ cubic metres, to me that seems pretty good value.

 

 

Totally agree your points about advertising vis-a-vis exposure on BSL webpage v cost for an advert and the potential for business uplift / new customers.

 

But it's not an advertising fee it's an admin fee which is used to instal and maintain another layer of bureaucracy, is likely to act as a disincentive to smaller / independent suppliers (opening the market to domination by larger outfits, price fixing and, ultimately, reduce uptake of RHI qualifying systems - not forgetting, the whole point is to reduce carbon output) and will likely be an inefficient, under resourced and poorly administered process manned by unaccountable, disinterested desk jockeys with little or no subject matter expertise leading, inevitably, to enduring inefficiency and fewer new qualifying installations.

 

Thanks for "reducing red tape" UK PLC.... you're a champ!

 

(The short version: yes, you're right, it's not a massive cost, but I still think it's pants!)

 

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