The Energy Bill Relief Scheme (EBRS) – Ended on March 31st!
The majority of businesses will no longer receive any support under the new Energy Bill Discount Scheme, but you can use our Energy Bill discount scheme calculator we’ve built to estimate the potential savings you should have received under both schemes.
Simply choose Dual fuel or Electric or Gas Only and then complete the required fields and we’ll email you through your potential savings PDF report!
The Energy Bill Discount Scheme
The Energy Bill Discount Scheme will be in operation for a year starting from April 1st, 2023 until March 31st, 2024. This scheme will replace the Energy Bill Relief Scheme which provided support to businesses and organizations from October 1st, 2022 until March 31st, 2023.
The scheme is composed of three parts:
- The Baseline Discount which automatically provides support with energy bills for eligible non-domestic customers in Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
- The Energy and Trade Intensive Industries (ETII) Discount, which offers a higher level of support to businesses and organizations in eligible sectors, but requires an application.
- The Heat Network Discount, which provides a higher level of support to heat networks with domestic end consumers, but also requires an application.
Most eligible non-domestic customers receiving the baseline discount can expect to see it in their May bill. Customers should continue paying their bills as usual until the discount is applied but you can use our Energy Bill Discount Scheme Calculator above to estimate the level of support you are likely to receive.
To be eligible for the EBDS baseline discount, businesses, voluntary sector organizations (such as charities), and public sector organizations (such as schools, hospitals, and care homes) must be on a non-domestic energy supply contract with a licensed energy supplier. This includes existing fixed price contracts agreed on or after December 1st, 2021, new fixed price contracts, deemed/out of contract or variable tariffs, and flexible purchase (or similar) contracts. In Northern Ireland, this also includes variable ‘Day Ahead Index’ (DAI) tariffs.
The baseline discount will be applied as a per-unit discount to eligible non-domestic customers’ 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. Maximum discounts have been set at £19.61 for electricity with a threshold price of £302 per megawatt hour (MWh), and £6.97 for gas with a threshold price of £107 per MWh, for most non-domestic energy users in Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
The discount is only applied to the wholesale element of the bill and does not include other costs such as network charges and operating costs. These discounts equate to a maximum discount of 1.961p per kWh for Electricity and 0.697p per kWh for Gas. The discount a business recieves is based on the wholesale price on the day you completed your contract being greater than 30.2p for Electricity and 10.7p for Gas. If the wholesale rate on the day of completion is greater than the threshold price the per-unit discount will be adjusted on a sliding scale up to its maximum discount value.
The Black Sheep Utilities, Energy Bill Discount Scheme Calculator has been designed to be as simple as possible to use and takes into account all of the eligbility and support level criteria to provide you with an easy to understand report outlining your estimated level of support.
The government have recently updated the wholesale pricing mechanism to reflect those under the current period of support as opposed the previous period covered under the Energy Bill Relief scheme. This means that the relative wholesale rates used to calculate support eligibility are lower than under the previous scheme.
With lower relative wholesale rates and higher threshold rates most non-domestic customers will not see additional support on their energy bills from April, and any support is likely to be significantly reduced. The government has advised that organizations should continue shopping around for the best energy deals as the actual price paid for energy will vary between energy suppliers, which is where we can help.
If you’ve used our Energy Bill Discount Scheme Calculator in the past to estimate your level of support it’s worth checking again due to the governments updated price mechanism.
If your currently out of contract its important to get in touch with one of the Energy Team here at Black Sheep Utilities as soon as possible as you will be receiving no governement support whilst also paying much higher rates than those currently available.
If your renewal date falls within the next 12 months it’s also important to start looking into new contracts now, and as we work with the majority of suppliers, we are perfectly positioned to assist you through this process.
