Did you know thousands of UK households are eligible for a discount on their electric bills to help ease the financial burden of their increased energy usage over the winter months?
The Warm Home Discount is a support scheme aimed at households who may struggle to pay their energy bills during the winter.
It comes in the form of a one-off payment of £140 to your electricity bill between the months of October and March.
The Warm Home Discount scheme was launched in April 2011 and has provided assistance with energy costs to over 2 million low income and vulnerable households in Great Britain each year.
Since its launch, the scheme has provided over £2 billion of direct assistance to qualifying households. There is currently plans to run it until winter 2020/21.
The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) is responsible for Warm Home Discount policy and legislation and the energy industry regulator, Ofgem, has the role to administer certain elements of the scheme.
It changes year on year but for the 2018/2019 period you would have qualified for the ‘Core Group’ if all of the following applied;
There is also a ‘Broader Group’ of customers that qualify for the Warm Home Discount.
If you think you might be eligible for this then you may be able to apply directly to your electricity supplier for help if you don't get the Guarantee Credit element of Pension Credit but;
You will need to check with your supplier to see if you're eligible and how to apply.
No, it is only certain suppliers.
Energy suppliers with over 250,000 domestic customers are required to participate in each element of the scheme.
Some smaller suppliers also voluntarily participate in part of the Warm Home Discount scheme to support customers who are in fuel poverty or who are at risk of it
If you qualify for the Warm Home Discount and are looking to switch energy supplier, please double check whether your new energy supplier offers the Warm Home Discount.
According to the gov.uk website, the following energy suppliers will be offering customers the Warm Home Discount for winter 18/19 (before arranging an energy transfer switch to them):
If you think that you might be eligible for support under the Warm Home Discount scheme, you can find information on the Gov UK website or (if your energy supplier is listed above) by contacting your energy supplier directly.