Energy Bills Discount Scheme
6th February 2023
The Energy Bill Relief Scheme (EBRS) Energy Bills Relief Scheme – BPG Energy currently provides a discount on wholesale gas and electricity prices for all non-domestic consumers. The scheme came into effect on 1 October 2022 for a six month period until 31 March 2023.
On 9th January 2023 the Government Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) announced the EBRS scheme will be replaced by the ‘Energy Bills Discount Scheme’ (EBDS) from 1st April 2023. The Energy Bills Discount Scheme will run for 12 months until 31 March 2024. All UK businesses and other non-domestic energy users are eligible for the scheme but they will only qualify for a discount above a government determined wholesale cost threshold.
The eligibility for the Energy Bills Discount Scheme will be the same as the Energy Bill Relief Scheme, although eligible non-domestic customers will now be segmented into Energy and Trade Intensive Industries or ETIIs, and non-ETII.
As with the original EBRS scheme, the EBDS scheme will apply to:
- businesses
- voluntary sector organisations, such as charities
- public sector organisations such as schools, hospitals, and care homes
who are:
- 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
As per the current scheme the government will provide a discount on your gas and electricity unit prices. Qualifying non-domestic consumers will now receive a per-unit discount to their energy bills during the 12-month period from April 2023 to March 2024, subject to a maximum discount. The relative discount will be applied if wholesale prices are above a certain price threshold. The discount is calculated as the difference between the wholesale price associated with an energy contract and the price threshold. The discount is phased in when the contract’s wholesale price exceeds the floor price, until the total discount per MWh reaches the maximum discount for that fuel.
Recognising that some non-domestic energy users in Great Britain and Northern Ireland are particularly vulnerable to high energy prices due to their energy intensive and trade exposure, (referred to as Energy and Trade Intensive Industries or ETIIs), these sectors will receive a higher level of support, subject to a maximum discount. This discount will only apply to 70% of energy volumes.
Please note that non-ETII customers eligible under the EBDS scheme do not need to take any action or notify BPG to access the support. The discount will automatically be applied to bills by BPG where applicable. The exception to this are ETII customers. Eligible ETII customers will have to apply for the higher level of support and Suppliers will receive a list of ETIIs from BEIS. Further details on how this will work will be published by the Government in due course. If you are a contracted customer of BPG and believe you are eligible for the ETII EBDS discount, please contact BPG in the first instance to allow us take the necessary steps to ensure the correct discount is applied in advanced of the scheme commencing on 1st April 2023.
The following link has been published by the Government with all the information currently available about the Scheme. For further details please refer to the following website: Energy Bills Discount Scheme – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).
For a full list of businesses in scope, see the List of sectors eligible for the Energy and Trade Intensive Industries (“ETII”) scheme (PDF, 66.2 KB, 4 pages).
If you are a BPG customer on a deemed contract, we reiterate that you are free to move to a supplier of your choice as soon as possible as BPG is a solely non-domestic supplier operating in the I&C sector and we do not contract with either domestic consumers or Micro-Businesses.
If you have any questions regarding your eligibility under the scheme, please contact our Account Services team on 0843 504 7799 or email us on account.services@bpgenergy.com. We are open Monday to Friday 9am to 5:30pm excluding Bank Holidays.
Security Awareness
It is possible that businesses may receive fraudulent texts, emails and calls from external entities purporting to be energy suppliers or regulatory bodies regarding the Energy Bills Relief Scheme. This may include requests for bank details stating that these are required in order to pay the discount direct into business bank accounts. Please do not engage with any such request.
We confirm that BPG would not contact our customers unsolicited and reaffirm that the discount will be automatically applied to the monthly billing. No action is required by any eligible customer to access the discount.
If you receive a call or correspondence and do not think it’s us, please take the following steps:
- Confirm that you believe the call is false and that you will return the call
- Call BPG on our published telephone number, 0843 504 7799, or email us on account.services@bpgenergy.com