The Energy Bill Relief Scheme (EBRS) is a government scheme that supports organisations with rising energy bills. The scheme aims to help firms struggling with their energy costs and encourage economic growth. There was much concern about whether this scheme would continue beyond its current date of 31 March 2023. But the government have recently announced that the Energy Bill Relief Scheme is not being extended – it will be replaced with a new Energy Bills Discount Scheme. Here we look at the history of EBRS and the transition to the latest discount scheme.   What is the Energy Bill Relief Scheme? The EBRS was first published in September 2022 – a chaotic month of political change.  The global impact of the war in Ukraine on wholesale gas prices had added to the [...]

The business energy and broader energy markets have seen the most volatile period in recent memory. The impacts of the post-Covid economic recovery and political hostilities worldwide have made natural gas prices grow by an unprecedented amount. This has a direct effect on the cost of wholesale electricity prices due to the reliance on gas for our power system. More and more businesses across the country are struggling with the impact of rising wholesale energy costs. A recent report commissioned by nPower showed that 80% of companies have energy as a board-level concern, which is now their top concern. So, what does the future hold for business energy? A recap on the business energy market in 2022 At the end of 2021, the government’s focus on energy was its goal of reducing carbon [...]

What's COP The next climate summit has arrived, and some exciting conversations will come.  The COP is an abbreviation for a meeting held by the UNFCCC and stands for Conference of Parties and is held periodically under the advocacy of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).  The conference aims to create rules, regulations and plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions worldwide.  It's where countries meet to discuss how they can tackle climate change together. So, at COP27 what should we expect to see agreed? The UNFCCC was created in 1992 to regulate how countries collaborate to fight climate change.  In other words, it's an international treaty that seeks fair and ambitious action on climate change from all countries around the world so that everyone can prevent dangerous global warming from [...]