Energy Price Cap For Businesses Finally Announced

The long awaited news that there will be an energy price cap for businesses in Northern Ireland will come as a welcome relief for many of them, as they can now begin to plan ahead with some degree of certainty.

Fixing Gas And Electricity Prices For 6 Months

The announcement was made a few days ago and this particular scheme will fix wholesale gas and electricity prices for firms for six months from October 1st, shielding businesses from costs which would have been frankly too much to sustain for most of them. As well as businesses being shielded from these huge costs, the government is also going to come to the aid of organisations such as schools, hospitals and charities. The supported price has been set at £211 per megawatt hour (MWh) for electricity and £75 per MWh for gas.

The above discount is going to be applied automatically for all businesses so there is no need for anyone to act (so please ignore any scam texts or emails urging you to apply for your discount, it is pretty inevitable that they will be doing the rounds!)

The Cap Will Bring Some Much Needed Support

Firmus Energy has welcomed the news in a statement which we have copied below from an article on the BBC News website. They said that:

“It will bring much-needed support to more than 5,000 of Firmus Energy’s commercial customers and help to address the high wholesale commodity cost of natural gas on the international markets,” a spokesperson said.

“We will continue to work with the BEIS (Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy – UK Government) and sector colleagues on the implementation of the EBRS.”

They added that customers do not need to apply for the scheme.

“We are hopeful that an announcement for domestic customers is imminent and hope to be able to contact customers shortly to provide more detail on that scheme when available.”

It is hard to understand why the publication of this energy price cap for businesses in Northern Ireland has taken so long to be released, but nevertheless it is here now and we should be grateful for that at least. It seems so long since there has been any kind of stability for businesses to hang their hat on and it is only when it is taken away from us that we realise how vital it is to us all. Whether any kind of stability surfaces over the next few months remains to be seen.