SSE - Domestic Alternative Fuel Payment email concern

baxie

Hello,  My Mother received an email from SSE to say that the £200 Domestic Alternative Fuel Payment would be paid shortly.  However we do not have any alternative fuel.

We get electricity from SSE, and nothing else, we have passive solar panels for heating water, but they do not generate energy.

I do not understand why she has been given this payment as I think she does not qualify.

In a webchat with SSE they said the payment has already been made, and that as she received the email she was eligible.

She is scared she is going to hit for a refund, because we cannot see how she qualifies.

Has anybody else received this email, or a letter, saying their payment will be paid soon?

pochase

Does she live in a postcode where gas is not available, and many other people are using oil or LPG?

Spoonie_Turtle

Presumably many of her neighbours in local area use alternative fuels?  Eligibility was worked out on an area basis, not household basis.  (And in Scotland it was worked out using data from 2011 because the census was not conducted in 2021 like in England and Wales, so it may be that a lot of now-green areas benefited.) 

As she automatically qualified it sounds like she's one of the unintended accidental beneficiaries.

pochase

Other question is is she using single rate electricity or E7 or similar? 

Newcad

The £200 AFP is an extra payment for those who are off the gas grid and so can't use mains gas for heating.

It is being paid by the government via your electricity supplier, if you have one.
That's simply because it's a convinient way for the government to distribute it.
https://sse.co.uk/help/energy/alternative-fuel-payment

As far as I can see the only qualifying condition is that you can't use mains gas for heating.
Whatever else you do use for heating is irrelevant, it's not being on the gas grid that counts.

dealyboy

Newcad said:

The £200 AFP is an extra payment for those who are off the gas grid and so can't use mains gas for heating.

It is being paid by the government via your electricity supplier, if you have one.
That's simply because it's a convinient way for the government to distribute it.
https://sse.co.uk/help/energy/alternative-fuel-payment

As far as I can see the only qualifying condition is that you can't use mains gas for heating.
Whatever else you do use for heating is irrelevant, it's not being on the gas grid that counts.

Not quite, probably most residents in blocks of flats would not be eligible.

No, as well as off the gas grid the majority of the postcode addresses must be using a heating fuel other than mains electricity for all in the postcode to be automatically qualified, otherwise residents not using mains electricity for central heating purposes will need to manually apply via a portal available from the end of the month.

Spoonie_Turtle

To hopefully allay the OP's fears, this is the official guidance to suppliers https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1130933/domestic-alternative-fuel-payment-scheme-suppliers-guidance.pdf

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 2022.
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 2022.
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 … The estimates are as at Census Day, 21 March 2021 for England and Wales; 27 March 2011 for Scotland.

This is why we're saying it's based on her area not her individual household.

baxie

Thank you very much for your replies.

She is not on mains gas, and I do not know anyone in this area who is.

There are a lot of houses with fires or wood burners, but in her house and the development it is on it is all electric houses with passive solar to heat the water.

She is on E10 tariff.

So I can reassure her that she will not have to refund this as it is based on the area data rather than individual date?

Thank you.

Spoonie_Turtle

baxie said:

Thank you very much for your replies.

She is not on mains gas, and I do not know anyone in this area who is.

There are a lot of houses with fires or wood burners, but in her house and the development it is on it is all electric houses with passive solar to heat the water.

She is on E10 tariff.

So I can reassure her that she will not have to refund this as it is based on the area data rather than individual date?

Thank you.

Yes.  She's been paid it because she was on the list to be paid, and that's all there is to it

Mstty

On the back of this thread (thanks) had a look on the EON community board as I was curious when it mentioned the payment being made to people with no MPRN in areas with no mains gas.

To our suprise because the whole village has no gas Eon Next have slipped in the £200 Alternative fuel payment and not notified us.

For clarity we have an ASHP an no alternative fuel so will donate this locally.