The Renewables Obligation Order (Northern Ireland) 2009

Circumstances in which no NIROCs are to be issued in respect of electricity generated from renewable sources

21.—(1) No NIROCs are to be issued in respect of electricity generated by a generating station in a month during all of part of which it generates electricity—

(a) wholly from renewable sources which consist of or include waste unless—

(i) the waste is biomass,

(ii) the waste is a liquid consisting wholly or mainly of hydrocarbon compounds,

(iii) the waste is in the form of a liquid or gaseous fuel produced by means of gasification, pyrolysis or anaerobic digestion, or

(iv) the generating station is a qualifying combined heat and power generating station;

(b) partly from renewable sources and partly from fossil fuel unless the renewable sources consist of—

(i) biomass,

(ii) biomass and Solid Recovered Fuel, or

(iii) a liquid or gaseous fuel produced by means of gasification, pyrolysis or anaerobic digestion;

(c) partly from renewable sources and partly from fossil fuel where the fossil fuel consists of or includes waste unless that waste is—

(i) liquid consisting wholly or mainly of hydrocarbon compounds,

(ii) in the form of a liquid or gaseous fuel produced by means of gasification, pyrolysis or anaerobic digestion, or

(iii) Solid Recovered Fuel;

(d) wholly or partly from peat.

(2) In this Article—

(a) in paragraph (1)(a) and (c) and in sub-paragraph (c), waste includes anything derived directly or indirectly from waste;

(b) in paragraph (1)(b) and (c), fossil fuel does not include waste which is a renewable source; and

(c) in determining how electricity has been generated for the purposes of paragraph (1)(a), (b) or (c), no account is to be taken of any fossil fuel or waste which the generating station uses for permitted ancillary purposes.

(3) For the purposes of paragraph (2)(c), fossil fuel or waste (which includes anything derived directly or indirectly from waste) is used for permitted ancillary purposes if—

(a) it is used in a generating station for—

(i) cleansing other fuels from the generating station’s combustion system prior to using fossil fuel or waste to heat the combustion system to its normal temperature;

(ii) the heating of the station’s combustion system to its normal operating temperature or the maintenance of that temperature;

(iii) the ignition of fuels of low or variable calorific value;

(iv) emission control; or

(v) standby generation or the testing of standby generation capacity, and

(b) the energy content of the fossil fuel or waste so used during a month (or, where both are so used during a month, their combined energy content) does not exceed 10 per cent of the energy content of all the energy sources used by that generating station to generate electricity during that month.

(4) In this Article, “standby generation” means the generation of electricity by equipment which is not used frequently or regularly to generate electricity and where all the electricity generated by that equipment is used by the generating station.