Some Great Places and Plumlife customers who are on a heat network and pay a service charge will receive a letter from us about the Energy Bill Relief Scheme shortly.
This is a Government scheme introduced to provide financial support for energy bills. The scheme is giving financial relief to commercial gas buyers like us with a discount on bulk energy prices. These discounts are being passed on to our customers who live in homes with a gas or electricity service charge.
With the cost of energy going up significantly our customers energy bill is still going to be higher than usual and the savings may not be obvious on your bill.
Have questions? Get answers below:
What is the Energy Bill Relief Scheme?
It’s a Government scheme providing businesses like Great Places and Plumlife with a discount on the cost of their gas and electricity. It applies to gas and electricity purchased from 1 October 2022 to 31 March 2023.
Who does the scheme affect?
The scheme affects all customers who pay Great Places or Plumlife for electricity, gas and/or heat through service charges, prepayment sub-meters, and metered bills. It does not include any electricity or gas supplies for which you pay the supplier directly. Your energy bill will still be higher than usual because the scheme will not cover the total amount of the energy cost increase, just some of it.
How does this affect customers of Great Places and Plumlife?
The scheme applies to all landlord and communal gas and electricity supplies, including those used to provide private electricity and heating to customers. All of the benefit of the scheme will be passed onto customers and the reduced gas and electricity costs will be used in calculating charges/bills, except where Great Places has subsidised this cost and it is lower as a result. As the cost of energy has gone up significantly, your energy bill will still be higher than usual and so the savings may not be obvious on your bill. We don’t make any profit on your energy bill.
What happens to the cost after 1 April 2023?
The Government has announced that there will be follow-on support for energy bills from 1 April with the Energy Bill Discount Scheme, however this is likely to be much less generous than the current scheme.
How will I receive the discount?
The benefit of the scheme is applied directly to Great Places and Plumlife’s electricity and gas bills. The actual cost paid by Great Places and Plumlife is used to calculate service charges and heat tariffs – this means the discount is already applied. Without the discount from the scheme your service charges and heat tariffs would be much higher.
Why are there are different charges for different meters at a scheme?
The cost of the electricity supply will vary from meter to meter because the energy supplier has to include for various different costs in their tariff. The tariff is made up of a consumption cost (p/kWh) and a standing charge (p/day or p/month).
The consumption cost not only includes the wholesale cost of the electricity (price paid to the generator) but also network losses and the cost of distribution and delivery of that electricity to customers. The cost of taxes and the cost of energy schemes are added too. The suppliers include their overheads and profit in there too, and the amount they add on will vary depending on the age and type of meters and the amount of electricity consumed.
What do I need to do?
You do not need to do anything as the discount from the scheme is automatically taken into account in your service charges and bills.
What if I am part of a heat network that supplies my heating and hot water?
If you are part of a heat network and you are billed through your service charge you will receive the discount in the same way. The scheme reduces the cost of the gas that we purchase and consume to provide heat for you, and the discounted costs will be applied to your service charges as normal. We don’t make any profit from the heat network.
For heat provided on a metered network, Great Places has not increased tariffs in line with the higher energy costs in the market.
The Government has announced that alternative support will be provided for customers on a heat network from 1 April 2023. However the details of this have not yet been released.
What if I buy prepayment cards from Great Places for electricity?
The tariffs for electricity charged by our pre-payment card meters are lower than the cost of that electricity to us even with the discount applied. Electricity tariffs have not increased in line with market prices. For that reason, the benefit of the scheme will not be passed onto customers.
What If I’m unhappy with how discount is applied?
If you’re unhappy about how the discount has been applied, or you think you should have received a discount, contact us at greatplaces.org.uk through Chatabot.
If you’re still unhappy with the discount passed on to you, and you have reason to believe that the Energy Bill Relief Scheme Pass-through Requirement (Heat Suppliers (England and Wales and Scotland)) Regulations 2022 have not been met, you can raise a complaint with the Energy Ombudsman.
Under the Energy Prices Act 2022, you can take up the recovery of the pass-through amount to which you are entitled as a civil debt if you have not received it by the time you get your next bill.
