Energy Bills Discount Scheme: Details And Eligibility

The Chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, has announced that the Energy Bills Discount Scheme will continue until the 31st of March 2024, but at a much-reduced rate ...

The latest support was set out in Parliament earlier this month, and the revised Energy Bills Discount Scheme will come into force from the 1st of April 2023 and last for a year. It will automatically apply unit discounts of up to £6.97/MWh for gas and up to £19.61/MWh for electricity for non-domestic customers who are eligible.

Eligible customers include:

- businesses
- voluntary sector organisations, such as charities
- public sector organisations such as schools, hospitals and care homes

And as for contract criteria, they must either be:

- on existing fixed price contracts that were agreed on or after the 1st of December 2021
- signing new fixed-price contracts
- on deemed/out-of-contract or standard variable tariffs
- on flexible purchase or similar contracts
- on variable 'Day Ahead Index' (DAI) tariffs (Northern Ireland scheme only)

The unit discounts for the Energy Bills Discount Scheme are subject to a wholesale price threshold of £107/MWh and £305/MWh for gas and electricity respectively. Any business with energy costs below those levels will receive no support at all.

"Of course, this takes some out of scope for support where they were receiving it previously!"

Eligible Energy and Trade Intensive Industries (known as ETII) will receive further support and the discount will apply to 70% of their energy volumes. A full list of these businesses and organisations can be found by downloading this Government PDF.

I feel that this announcement brings some welcome certainty for many struggling businesses, charities and public sector organisations. Yet the drop in support raises some red flags as to how some of my clients will cope.

Maybe the Government needs to ramp up its own investment into the UK's transition to Net Zero which could bring energy pricing down by switching to renewable sources?

The revised Energy Bills Discount Scheme does bring some relief though.

If you feel inspired to find out more about anything I've said here, do call me on 01908 774320 or leave a comment below and I'll be in touch as soon as I can.