The Treasury has released the finer details for the snappily named replacement to the Energy Bill Relief Scheme which finishes on 31st March, the details for which we have summarised below:
Update provided by Clear Energy Solutions ltd.,
The new scheme will operate in a broadly similar fashion to its predecessor and is available to any qualifying business or voluntary sector organisations, such as charities and public sector organisations including local councils, schools, hospitals, and care homes. Most of the qualifying criteria remains the same as before and in order to benefit businesses must be:
- on existing fixed price contracts that were agreed on or after 1 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 government will provide a discount on your gas and electricity unit prices in much the same way the current scheme operates and qualifying businesses will now receive a per-unit discount on their energy bills for the 12-month period running from April 2023 to March 2024.
The new scheme will see a maximum discount available, regardless of contract type which has been set at £19.61 per megawatt hour or more simply 19.61 pence per kWh for electricity and £6.97 per MWh or 6.97 pence per kWh for gas. The discount will be applied automatically to bills and only if wholesale prices are above £302 per MWh for electricity or £107 per MWh for gas.
The discount applied will be the difference between the wholesale price and the price threshold up to the maximums detailed above. The maximum discount does mean the scheme is not as generous as its predecessor but the Treasury still estimates that a further £5.5 billion will be handed out to businesses by April 2024.
In addition, the government has released a list of what it deems to be energy intensive industries who will be eligible for a higher degree of support equating to electricity at £89 per MWh with a price threshold of £185 per MWh and gas at £40 per MWh with a price threshold of £99 per MWh. You can follow the link below to view the list and to receive this this extra support, you must make an application to the Treasury the details for which have not yet been released.
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1128033/230104_ETII_List_for_gov.uk.pdf
Further information on the scheme as a whole can be found here:
