Our £15 million support fund offers extra help to small businesses who are struggling with energy costs
We’ve launched a new support fund targeted at small business customers who are struggling with energy costs. Our £15 million fund will provide energy support to small businesses such as pubs, cafes, restaurants and hairdressers and other small businesses in retail, education, manufacturing, and charities with existing energy debt.
We know small businesses are struggling with their energy costs right now and hope to offer some help as part of a £50m energy support package that has been supporting residential customers in need since the start of the energy crisis.
It’s in addition to Government support.
Our business energy support fund will be available to existing small business customers, e.g., pubs, cafes, restaurants, hairdressers and other small businesses in retail, education, manufacturing, and charities with existing energy debt.
We’ll be contacting small businesses who are eligible for this support – you don’t need to do anything to apply. Support will vary depending on the business need and will be paid throughout the next six months.
We know this support won’t apply to everyone. But there’s other ways to make things more manageable.
You can find links to information about the government’s Energy Bill Relief Scheme (EBRS), smart meters to get accurate bills, and ways to reduce your energy use in our FAQs section.
If you’re finding it difficult to pay your energy bills, visit our financial difficulty guide for steps to managing your energy costs and ways we can help you get back on track.
Our business energy support fund won’t apply to everyone but is designed to help existing customers who are struggling with energy debt. To qualify for support you’ll need to be:
We’ll contact eligible customers over the coming weeks and pay 50% off their current debt balance.
We’ll set up a payment plan for eligible businesses that don’t already have one which must be paid by Direct Debit.
We’ll be sending out emails and letters to eligible customers during February and March.
The energy grant will appear as a credit on your next bill within 30 days of receiving our email or letter to let you know that you qualify.
We’re applying the 50% credit at an account level and it’s one credit per account regardless of the number of sites attached to that account.
Our business energy support fund will run until all the £15 million has been awarded.
