MSE News: £200 Alternative Fuel Payment to be paid 'in the New Year'

Patrington

The last two paras of this BBC article from today are at least consistent with the payment timeline:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-derbyshire-64213649

MattMattMattUK

Patrington said:

The last two paras of this BBC article from today are at least consistent with the payment timeline:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-derbyshire-64213649

"That is why we have increased the Alternative Fuel Payment to £200 and are committed to delivering this in February."

That is the first slightly solid deadline that they have suggested, others have previously been "soon" or "in the new year" etc. Oil per kWh is still well below the cost of gas though so they are already better off than the majority on mains gas or those who use electricity for heating. 

dreaming

Can I ask if this alternative fuel payment is in addition to the £300 that we have been getting over the past couple of months (and also for the next couple)? My daughter is receiving the £67 credit from her electric supplier but her heating and hot water is via oil. I spoke to her about it this afternoon after seeing the Martin Lewis show last night but she wasn't aware of it and as she works very long shifts  I said I would try to get the information for her. I have looked on the govt. site but didn't find it very clear - I know there have been some changes recently to the original plan but don't want her to miss out. Thanks.

Spoonie_Turtle

dreaming said:

Can I ask if this alternative fuel payment is in addition to the £300 that we have been getting over the past couple of months (and also for the next couple)? My daughter is receiving the £67 credit from her electric supplier but her heating and hot water is via oil. I spoke to her about it this afternoon after seeing the Martin Lewis show last night but she wasn't aware of it and as she works very long shifts  I said I would try to get the information for her. I have looked on the govt. site but didn't find it very clear - I know there have been some changes recently to the original plan but don't want her to miss out. Thanks.

Yes.  That is the Energy Bill Support Scheme, the £200 is the Alternative Fuel Payment.

isorox

Patrington said:

The last two paras of this BBC article from today are at least consistent with the payment timeline:

Oh that's depressing

"We couldn't afford any more. It got to the point where we were bathing the kids in the sink in the kitchen, filling up the kettle, boiling it, then letting it cool, for the water."

Yes oil jumped from about 30p a litre in summer 2021 to £1 a litre in summer 2022, but even at £1/litre that's about 10p/kWh

So instead he's using electricity (at 35p/kWh), and he's boiling the kettle - upping the water about 80C - about 0.1kWh per litre, then letting it cool to 40C, rather than using oil which even at just 70% efficiency to up the water by about 30C would use half that energy at about 1/4 the price.

Assuming a 10 litre sink he's spending 35p rather than about 5-10p. Even if you buy 20 litres at a time at £1.70 per litre, it's still twice the price to use electricity.

Ebe_Scrooge

isorox said:

Patrington said:

The last two paras of this BBC article from today are at least consistent with the payment timeline:

"We couldn't afford any more. It got to the point where we were bathing the kids in the sink in the kitchen, filling up the kettle, boiling it, then letting it cool, for the water."

I'm always a bit sceptical of reports like these, even from a generally well-respected news source.  Who in their right minds would waste money boiling a kettle then letting it cool?  Sure, use a kettle to warm the water up to a comfortable temperate, or boil it once then mix it with cold water until you get the temperature you want.

By the way, this is in no way meant to detract from the very real difficulties some people are unfortunately facing.  Just pointing out that perhaps the facts are not always presented entirely accurately.

dunstonh

Ebe_Scrooge said:

isorox said:

Patrington said:

The last two paras of this BBC article from today are at least consistent with the payment timeline:

"We couldn't afford any more. It got to the point where we were bathing the kids in the sink in the kitchen, filling up the kettle, boiling it, then letting it cool, for the water."

I'm always a bit sceptical of reports like these, even from a generally well-respected news source.  Who in their right minds would waste money boiling a kettle then letting it cool?  Sure, use a kettle to warm the water up to a comfortable temperate, or boil it once then mix it with cold water until you get the temperature you want.

By the way, this is in no way meant to detract from the very real difficulties some people are unfortunately facing.  Just pointing out that perhaps the facts are not always presented entirely accurately.

When you look at articles that are within your own sphere of knowledge (such as covering the business you work in), you often see so many errors or simplifications.    So, its reasonable to assume that similar things are happening in articles in areas where your knowledge is not as strong.

Jules0400

Smart77 said:

Will we actually be able to withdraw the allowance from our electricity account to pay our oil bill? Energy companies are notorious for hanging onto any credit that might have built up on your account. 

I’d like to know this too!  I preloaded my meter as much as I could knowing this was coming, so if we get the £200 AFP + £67 monthly payment for electricity, the meter only has a credit limit of £250?  £200 on electric isn’t going to help me with my oil bill!!

Patrington

Jules0400 said:

Smart77 said:

Will we actually be able to withdraw the allowance from our electricity account to pay our oil bill? Energy companies are notorious for hanging onto any credit that might have built up on your account. 

I’d like to know this too!  I preloaded my meter as much as I could knowing this was coming, so if we get the £200 AFP + £67 monthly payment for electricity, the meter only has a credit limit of £250?  £200 on electric isn’t going to help me with my oil bill!!

Ask your electricity supplier to refund the credit

Spoonie_Turtle

Cross-posting, so as many relevant people get to see it as possible:

Hot off the press!

Customer eligibility
3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 BEIS produce a list of Meter Point Access Numbers (MPANs) which BEIS has determined (see paragraphs 3.5-3.6 below) correspond to households who – if otherwise eligible – should be paid the Alternative Fuel Payment automatically through their electricity supplier.

BEIS will in early February provide to each electricity supplier a subset of MPANs for which each supplier is responsible.  Suppliers will receive MPANs for consumers with whom they have an existing relationship. Each MPAN will be provided to only one supplier.

Suppliers are responsible for determining which MPANs correspond to an eligible customer, where eligible customer means a domestic customer who is party to a Domestic Supply Contract or a Deemed Contract for electricity supply which relates to a domestic premises at 00:00 hours on 1 February (the qualifying date), with only one Domestic Customer per Domestic Supply Contract or Deemed Contract per Domestic Premises being an eligible customer. 

Suppliers are not responsible for paying any customer who does not correspond to a provided MPAN, regardless of their relationship with this customer.

Data matching
3.5 The following sets out the basic approach followed by BEIS in matching the various data sets and extracting the relevant list of MPANs for each supplier, identifying consumers to receive automatic payments for the AFP:

a. Off gas grid postcodes. Xoserve have published a list of GB postcodes where there is no active gas meter point connection. Gas connection record as of 13 December 20221.

b. Postcode look-up. ONS’s National Statistics Postcode Lookup is used to map active GB postcodes to Lower layer Super Output Areas (LSOA). Data published on 24 November 20222.

c. Census data on heating type. Provided by ONS and is used to identify the LSOAs that are eligible for automatic payments. BEIS will use this data to eliminate LSOAs that have been identified as predominantly having houses which heat their homes via electricity, as houses which are primarily electrically heated are not in scope of the Alternative Fuel Payment. Households which are primarily alternatively fuelled but have been eliminated through this process are eligible for the AFP Alternative Fund (see paragraph 1.6). 

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/domestic-alternative-fuel-payment-afp-scheme-in-great-britain-guidance-for-electricity-suppliers