Justin Madders – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Justin Madders on 2016-10-18.

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what checks his Department has in place to measure the standard of work carried out by contractors under the Energy Company Obligations scheme.

Jesse Norman

All Energy Company Obligation (ECO) measures are installed in accordance with the appropriate industry standards including PAS 2030 (Publicly Available Specification) and building regulations.

Ofgem, the scheme administrator, carries out checks to ensure that the relevant scheme requirements have been met and that the energy bill and carbon savings reported by suppliers are accurate. These checks include technical monitoring which verifies that measures have been installed in accordance with the relevant installation standards.

Ofgem also conducts audits on measures notified to them by suppliers and have a counter-fraud team which works to detect, prevent and deter fraudulent activity. In addition, energy suppliers are required to conduct their own technical monitoring to ensure their measures are compliant.

Further to this, last year Government commissioned the Bonfield review, an independent review of consumer advice, protection, standards and enforcement for energy efficiency and renewable energy which will be published shortly.