Managing the business impact of the reduction in Government energy subsidies
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For the past five months, many organisations in Great Britain and Northern Ireland have been sheltered from the worst impacts of volatile energy prices thanks to the Government's Energy Bill Relief Scheme (Relief Scheme), which provided generous energy bill relief to a broad swathe of industry.
Unfortunately, the Relief Scheme is coming to an end on 31 March 2023. Whilst it will be replaced with a new Energy Bills Discount Scheme (Discount Scheme), which is currently stated to apply from 1 April 2023 to 31 March 2024, the scope and reach of that scheme is likely to be far more limited than was previously the case.
As such, for most businesses their exposure to volatile energy costs will increase after 31 March 2023. The good news is that there are various steps businesses can take now to minimise the impact to them when the changes take effect.
In this article, we look at the scope of the Discount Scheme, and consider some of the operational and contractual mechanisms your organisation may be able to utilise to mitigate the impacts of the reduced coverage under the Discount Scheme.