Citizens Advice demands consumer protection for district heating

Scottish branch calls for statutory measures around billing and service

Citizens Advice Scotland has called for households who use district heating schemes to be given more consumer protection.

The consumer group said has published a new report, entitled Different rules for different fuels, which states there is a “clear need” for greater protection as district heat is not regulated in Scotland in the same way gas and electricity are.

The report calls on the Scottish Government to introduce statutory protection measures around billing, metering, standards of service and pricing.

It also recommends a statutory licence for district heating suppliers.

And it adds there is wide support from suppliers and other stakeholders for more regulation of the sector, which is expected to grow significantly in the next few years.

“The findings of this report have been illuminating,” said Craig Salter from Citizens Advice Scotland’s consumer futures unit. “And while it shows us that there are many examples of good practice from existing district heating suppliers, there is a clear need for greater and more consistent consumer protection for those using district heating.

“We hope that the findings of this project, and the recommendations that have come out of it, will help to ensure that an expansion in the use of district heating in Scotland has the interests of those using it at its heart, and will help to allow it to play a meaningful and pro-active role in alleviating fuel poverty.”

In March, the Association for Decentralised Energy (ADE) launched a new task force on district heating, which will look at how to build on an existing customer protection scheme for consumers using heat networks,

The task force will also consider how to build on the existing customer protection scheme, called Heat Trust, including important consumer issues such as heat pricing, contract length and contract structure, areas which Heat Trust is not permitted by law to address.

“We are committed to ensuring district heating customers receive good service and fair value, and are strongly encouraged that Heat Trust addresses nearly everything called for by Citizens Advice Scotland, including access to the Energy Ombudsman, support for vulnerable customers, compensation for outages, and clear billing,” said ADE’s head of policy, Jonathan Graham.

“Heat Trust’s standards are already protecting more than 30,000 households across 51 district heating networks throughout the UK. Any Scottish Government licensing requirement should be directly built on Heat Trust’s success.”

The Heat Trust’s head of scheme, Bindi Patel, said: “We welcome the recommendation in Citizens Advice’s commissioned research that the Scottish Government should build on the Heat Trust, which the report highlights has been ‘developed and tested extensively with stakeholders’.

“We believe that all heat suppliers should be required to meet the standards set by the Heat Trust as a minimum. Should the Scottish Government look to develop a licensing regime, a clear method of demonstrating that a heat supplier will meet consistent customer service standards is to join the Heat Trust. Heat Trust can, therefore, work hand-in-hand with a licensing regime.”