So the discretionary fund is.....**drumroll**.......£100 measly quid!?

Ebe_Scrooge

wwally said:

RobM99 said:

How do gas users get help? The £400 is off electricity, or so I thought at least.

The £400 is paid to all households through electricity bills but is to cover both electricity and gas on-grid energy. The £100 is a top-up for off-grid fuel users such as heating oil, LPG and solid fuel.

So it could be argued that oil users are actually getting more help - assuming that everyone uses mains electricity.  Someone who uses electricity and gas gets £400 off their electricity bill, designed to help cover the cost of both fuels.  Those on oil still get the £400 off their electricity bill, and an additional £100 for oil.

mumf

Ebe_Scrooge said:

wwally said:

RobM99 said:

How do gas users get help? The £400 is off electricity, or so I thought at least.

The £400 is paid to all households through electricity bills but is to cover both electricity and gas on-grid energy. The £100 is a top-up for off-grid fuel users such as heating oil, LPG and solid fuel.

So it could be argued that oil users are actually getting more help - assuming that everyone uses mains electricity.  Someone who uses electricity and gas gets £400 off their electricity bill, designed to help cover the cost of both fuels.  Those on oil still get the £400 off their electricity bill, and an additional £100 for oil.

That is a very good point. We are all electric ,but 99% of our heating is wood/ coal. We get nothing for that. The payment of 400 quid from our electricity is accepted though, but it’s not especially cheap for us taxpayers who supply the government to supply … well you know!

maisie_cat

Ebe_Scrooge said:

wwally said:

RobM99 said:

How do gas users get help? The £400 is off electricity, or so I thought at least.

The £400 is paid to all households through electricity bills but is to cover both electricity and gas on-grid energy. The £100 is a top-up for off-grid fuel users such as heating oil, LPG and solid fuel.

So it could be argued that oil users are actually getting more help - assuming that everyone uses mains electricity.  Someone who uses electricity and gas gets £400 off their electricity bill, designed to help cover the cost of both fuels.  Those on oil still get the £400 off their electricity bill, and an additional £100 for oil.

Those on gas are also getting a 4.2p/kWh reduction as part of the EPG, so a 10000 kWh gas user will get an additional £420 off their bill on top of the £400. 
As most of us have electric most are getting the same "help" per kWh (unless you fixed) regardless of how they heat their home.
Although I'm still not clear that those who heat with wood have been taken into account, the costs of wood pellets has risen from 6.2p/kWh to a nice round 12p so the year on year increase for our 10500 kWh is £609.
At the moment I can't find specific help for that at all, the focus appears to be oil & LPG.

wwally

maisie_cat said:

Although I'm still not clear that those who heat with wood have been taken into account, the costs of wood pellets has risen from 6.2p/kWh to a nice round 12p so the year on year increase for our 10500 kWh is £609.
At the moment I can't find specific help for that at all, the focus appears to be oil & LPG.

TBH there looks like there is no thinking still behind the announcements for off-grid fuels. In a fair world the £100 grant should be payable to anyone who a) does not have a mains gas meter and b) can prove that they have bought a volume of home heating fuel. Coal has been mentioned explicitly, so there's a fair chance that wood pellets would qualify when the details get worked through & announced.

BUFF

maisie_cat said:

Ebe_Scrooge said:

wwally said:

RobM99 said:

How do gas users get help? The £400 is off electricity, or so I thought at least.

The £400 is paid to all households through electricity bills but is to cover both electricity and gas on-grid energy. The £100 is a top-up for off-grid fuel users such as heating oil, LPG and solid fuel.

So it could be argued that oil users are actually getting more help - assuming that everyone uses mains electricity.  Someone who uses electricity and gas gets £400 off their electricity bill, designed to help cover the cost of both fuels.  Those on oil still get the £400 off their electricity bill, and an additional £100 for oil.

Those on gas are also getting a 4.2p/kWh reduction as part of the EPG, so a 10000 kWh gas user will get an additional £420 off their bill on top of the £400. .

Up to 4.2p/kWh. Assuming that I get it (EPG rates still not published by supplier, I fixed in July) I will be getting ~1-1.4p/kWh support which in my case equates to ~£70-98 over the year. Some will get no support.
There are going to be so many permutations of fuel/price/usage that aiming for a similar price per kWh to the predominant fuel (gas) would seem to be fair to me.

savers_united

With regards to vouchers would a voucher issued with name / address per household that can be used to reduce the cost of next oil delivery by £100 be a simple approach. A quick check could be made on application for voucher that mains gas is not supplied

As for the £100 it seems fair when oil is currently below the Gov't EPG from Oct 1st, whilst oil has increased in price it is nowhere near the increase seen with Gas prices, it would need oil to increase to around £1-£1.05 per litre to equal the per. Kwh cost of mains gas.

Those who have a fixed gas tariff will have no support if its below the EPG, they are applying the same principle to oil. 

Getting_greyer

It's a tough one. I ordered my winter oil couple of days ago worried that lots of people will wait on the announcement so short surge in demand. Price today would be extra £80 from same supplier.  Only hindsight will show if this was a more expensive decision or not but I think a sensible decision. 

Questions remain on the mode of delivering the £100 such as wether retrospective etc.  I'm more concerned about those who may require the £100 up front in order to buy the minimum delivery of 500l in the first place.

Apodemus

Getting_greyer said:

It's a tough one. I ordered my winter oil couple of days ago worried that lots of people will wait on the announcement so short surge in demand. Price today would be extra £80 from same supplier.  Only hindsight will show if this was a more expensive decision or not but I think a sensible decision. 

Questions remain on the mode of delivering the £100 such as wether retrospective etc.  I'm more concerned about those who may require the £100 up front in order to buy the minimum delivery of 500l in the first place.

Yes, I pounced this morning, ordering £1400 worth of oil online before business opened for the day.  My usual supplier's price had finally dropped. while the cheaper competitor's price had now risen again and was above that of my usual supplier.  I worried that this was a sign the general price was about to rise again.  Time will tell whether I will qualify for any help, but if this purchase is too early to be within the scheme, then I guess I still have 1500L of empty space in the tank if it is going to be worth it to add more! 

Section62

savers_united said:

With regards to vouchers would a voucher issued with name / address per household that can be used to reduce the cost of next oil delivery by £100 be a simple approach. A quick check could be made on application for voucher that mains gas is not supplied

The simplest approach would be to take the MPAN database, subtract properties with an active connection on the MPRN database, (possibly do some tidying up) and then arrange to credit each remaining MPAN account with £100.

Anything involving printing vouchers and putting them in the post will be more complicated and expensive to administer.  And when dealing with hundreds of thousands of properties there is no such thing as a 'quick check', unfortunately.

wwally

Section62 said:

The simplest approach would be to take the MPAN database, subtract properties with an active connection on the MPRN database, (possibly do some tidying up) and then arrange to credit each remaining MPAN account with £100.

Sounds like a good plan!