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The Energy Bills Support Scheme was a scheme for homes to get a £400 discount on their energy payments from the government. It ended on 30 June 2023. Here's everything you need to know about how it worked.

What support was available

Every home in Britain with electricity was entitled to a £400 discount from the government, to help with the cost of energy over 6 months. (This broke down to £66 in both October and November, and £67 for each month in December, January, February, and March.)

The discount was paid by your electricity supplier and was on top of the Energy Price Guarantee.

It's all part of the government’s wider support with the cost of living, Help for Households.

There was no need to apply for the discount and there’s no need to pay it back.

Check what support you're getting

Use our tool to keep track of your energy discounts and other financial help. Check now

How the discount worked

The way we paid you the discount depended on how you paid for your energy at the time.

Smart Pay As You Go meters

We would have added your monthly discount straight onto your electricity smart meter as a credit in the first week of each month.

We’d also have been in touch with you to confirm that we added the credit. If we weren’t able to do this, we'd have posted you a voucher to use at your local PayPoint store instead.

Traditional Pay As You Go meters

You would have received vouchers in the post by the 11th working day of each month. These could be taken to the PayPoint store to top up your electricity or gas meters – or both. You would have had 90 days to redeem each voucher from the date it was issued or until 30 June 2023.

Be aware of scams

Some customers have been sent scam emails or text messages.

We’ll never ask for bank details for these discounts, so don’t share them.

And we only send vouchers by email or post – not text message.

If you get a suspicious message, be sure to report it.

Report a scam

Data privacy The following information will be shared with the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, who monitor the Energy Bills Support Scheme:

• Your meter point number

• Whether you've received and redeemed each discount

• Information about your meter point – including your billing cycle and how you pay your bill

For details, read the government's privacy notice.

Further government support

The government has also set up some other cost of living support schemes that aren’t directly applied to your energy bill.

Domestic Alternative Fuel Payment

The Domestic Alternative Fuel Payment (AFP) is a £200 HM Government funded payment given in February 2023 to people in Great Britain who use alternative fuels to heat their homes, in recognition of the pressures caused by the rising costs of those fuels. This includes oil, coal, liquified petroleum gas (LPG) or biomass. You won’t need to pay this back.

How you got your payment will have depended on how you paid for your energy.

If you topped up with a smart Pay As You Go meter we’ll have added your payment straight to your electricity smart meter as a credit.

We’ll have got in touch to confirm once the credit was added. If we weren’t able to apply the payment to your meter, we’d have sent your payment in the post. See below for more information.

If you topped up with a traditional Pay As You Go meter you should have received your payment by post before the end of February and could redeem it in one of the following ways:

• Mobile banking - by scanning the QR code on the letter.

• PayPoint - If you don’t have online banking, the letter will have included two £100 vouchers, which could have been redeemed for cash at your local PayPoint store. We send two because of the limit set by PayPoint.

You’ll need to have redeemed the vouchers by 30 June 2023.

A cheque for the Alternative Fuel Payment will have been sent instead of vouchers if we identify that you’ll have benefited from receiving your payment this way. We’ll have based this on how you usually top up, where you're located and how you received your Energy Bills Support Scheme discount.

Questions and answers

Can I still get this discount? The Energy Bills Support Scheme ended on 30 June 2023. Other government support for costs of living is still available.

Do I have to pay the government discount back? No, you don't have to pay it back.

Were all customers eligible? All our domestic customers in Great Britain with an electricity account were eligible for the £400 discount.

Would I still have received a discount if my account was in debt? Yes. All households with a domestic electricity connection in Great Britain were eligible for the £400 discount. Depending on your payment type, the discount could have been used to reduce debt balances.

If you're struggling financially or you're worried about your energy bills, we're here to support you. Find out about the different ways we can help.

There is also further support from the government on the cost of living as part of its Help for Households.

Where can I go for help if I’ve had a problem with the discount or I didn’t receive it? If you have any issues with your bills, contact us.

What if I didn’t need the discount? If you were able to keep your home comfortably warm last winter without the government's £400 Energy Bills Support Scheme, you had the option to donate some or all of it to the national fuel poverty charity, National Energy Action.

I’m a pensioner – how should I have received my discount? Being a pensioner would have made no difference to the way you received your discount. The only thing that would have made a difference is how you were paying for your energy at the time and the type of meter you had. You’ll find information about payment plan types in other parts of this page.

The UK government also offered a one-off £300 Pensioner Cost of Living Payment for over 8 million pensioners to be paid alongside the Winter Fuel Payment. See more details on the Cost of Living Payment.