As Ofgem‘s latest price cap brings average household energy bills to a two-year low, concerns arise for over 500,000 households excluded from the cap’s protection following the conclusion of Government support on 31st March.
The Energy Bill Discount Scheme, designed to assist these households, ended, leaving many reliant on communal heating networks vulnerable to unrestricted prices influenced by the wholesale gas market.
Heat Trust, advocating for heat network consumers, has urged Energy Minister Lord Callanan to extend the scheme urgently.
Stephen Knight, Director of Heat Trust, said: “When the Energy Bill Discount Scheme was launched, the government said that it would ensure heat network customers would not face disproportionately higher energy bills than other households. Sadly, for many of the country’s 500,000 heat network customers, this has not been the case.
“While the majority of households are finally seeing the cost of their energy bills starting to ease, many families in homes supplied by heat networks are still experiencing much higher prices as they remain unprotected by the price cap and pay for heat based on the historic wholesale cost of gas.
“We have called on the government to urgently extend the scheme for a further year to ensure that help reaches more heat network customers in need of support. At the very least, we need to ensure that everyone entitled to support in 2023-24 receives the money that they are entitled to, and that enforcement action it taken against suppliers who have failed to apply on behalf of their customers.”
Energy Live News has contacted Ofgem and the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero for comment.
