The government have announced support through the Energy Bills Support Scheme (EBSS) Alternative Funding. The scheme is to provide equivalent support to domestic households who have not automatically received EBSS support as they do not have a domestic electricity supply contract.
To be eligible for EBSS Alternative Funding, applicants must meet the following criteria on the date of their application:
- the dwelling for which support is being claimed is the sole or main residential address of the applicant
- the household is responsible for paying for energy used in the dwelling as part of a service charge, rent or other arrangement, and may, through these charges increasing have the impact of increased energy bills costs passed on to them between 1 October 2022 and 31 March 2023
- the household is not eligible for or already receiving EBSS payments, either through the main EBSS scheme or the EBSS Alternative Funding, in whole or in part
- the household dwelling is not a business premises or other form of non-domestic businesses whose main business activity is to provide long term residential accommodation (landlords, care homes etc). Only households, and not the businesses themselves, may apply for EBSS Alternative Funding
Types of dwellings that may be eligible are:
- park home residents
- housing association, social and private tenants, and leaseholders, supplied via a landlord with a commercial meter
- partly and wholly self-funded care home residents (where they make any contribution to their costs, as opposed to NHS funded residents)
- households in house boats on residential moorings
- household on a private electricity network, for example those supplied by a heat network
- off-grid households
- traveller households on authorised sites
- households in non-permanent or supported accommodation
The application portal went live on 27 February 2023 with the scheme closing to new applications on 31 May 2023. We are required to ensure that eligible applicants receive payments within 30 working days of receiving the application from DESNZ.
Applications can only be made on GOV.UK: Apply for energy bill support if you do not get it automatically.
Please do not contact Hammersmith & Fulham Council to make an application or ask for further details, all contact must be directly with GOV.UK and via their Assisted Digital Call Centre. The freephone telephone number for the centre is 0808 175 3287. The contact centre is open Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm.