We welcome the Government’s intervention and support with the ongoing energy crisis for UK organisations, which can be viewed in full here. The Energy Bill Relief Scheme has been designed to allow organisations to plan and budget properly for the winter period, which is essential during the current energy crisis prompted by the economic impacts of COVID-19 and ongoing Russian-Ukrainian war.

The bill backs Zenergi’s view that remaining in a contract is the most secure way to proceed. We encourage organisations to not put off signing contracts for the meantime, despite energy suppliers reigning in operations to digest the news and plan recovery measures.

Customers will have a reduction to their fixed, flexible or variable rates. This means if you are not in a fixed energy supply contract you will still receive help, but instead of a reduction to your agreed fixed rate you will receive a discount automatically applied against either your trades (flex) or published rates (variable).

*based on wholesale market movements. Government indicates could change.

Being in a contract also means that you are protected from rising wholesale costs in the period between now and when the relief ends (March 2023) when you may need to re-contract.

Please note the published rates apply to the commodity aspect of your bill only, there are still the non-commodity charges, such as distribution, transportation, and green levies etc. to be factored in.

The help will start in November 2022, but will be applied to invoices from 1 October 2022, and will be applicable to all contracts accepted after 1 April 2022 onwards. Energy suppliers will automatically update the Government’s unit rate reduction to contracts and we will ensure these are correctly applied to our customers’ bills and validate the figures where they have asked us to.

While the wholesale rates will be reduced, the standing charge will still be payable at published contract levels. We have seen increases on this charge recently and will monitor the position and challenge accordingly. We warn those not contracted that they will pay over the odds and that these rates can be amended higher without prior notice at any point.

Other unavoidable charges, such as third-party non-commodity taxes, are said to have the ‘green’ or renewable levy removed. We await further clarification, to understand if this removes Renewable Obligation (RO) and/or Feed-in Tariffs (FiTs) or the Climate Change Levy only.,

Customers identified as “vulnerable” according to a forthcoming report to be published in Q4 2022 may see further help into the new financial year, but as for tax relief, this wasn’t addressed. The industry now needs a steer on the non-commodity aspects and then the commodity post March 2023 from the Government, but rest assured we will keep you informed of all developments.

We will be communicating with customers individually. In the meantime, we encourage you to visit our MarketWatch site for daily prices and market analysis, and access to live chat with one of our energy experts every day between 10.00 a.m. and 12:00 p.m.