Factories have until 30 November to apply for the electricity cut

Applications for the British Industrial Competitiveness Scheme open on 1 October and close at 11.59pm on 30 November. The cut is not on the bill yet. A firm that misses the window does not get a decision in January with the firms that filed.

The relief, as the department describes it, is up to £40 a megawatt-hour, taken off the indirect cost of the Renewables Obligation, the Feed-in Tariff and the Capacity Market. The first two come off from April 2027. The Capacity Market comes off from October 2027. In April the government said the same scheme would reach more than 10,000 manufacturers and cut bills by up to 25 percent, at £35 to £40 a megawatt-hour. Those are the public figures. The guidance published in August still says the detail of an extra payment in 2027 will be added later, and that the whole thing depends on legislation the government hopes to have through in the autumn.

1 Oct

Applications open

30 Nov

Applications close, 11.59pm

£40/MWh

The ceiling the department has stated

Jan 2027

When a decision is due

Who qualifies

The August guidance sets four tests. A site has to pass all four. The company must be on Companies House. It must sit in an eligible sector, scored by the 2007 SIC code. It must make an eligible product in Great Britain, scored by a six-digit trade code. The site must take at least 33 megawatt-hours a year of electricity from the grid.

The sector test looks at the SIC code, not at how expensive the plant is to run. For the frontier industries in the industrial strategy, a code qualifies only if the sector’s electricity, divided by its gross value added, is above 0.9 percent. For the foundational industries that feed those sectors, the bar is 2.7 percent. Both figures come from Office for National Statistics data, not from a meter reading. A firm can be expensive to run and still be in a code that failed the cut. The eligible codes are published.

The product test is separate. The site has to be making goods on the eligible list, and be able to show it. Storage, sorting and distribution on their own do not count.

The 33 megawatt-hours is the smallest of the tests, and it is easy to misread. It is grid electricity, at that site, not the group, and not the power the site generates for itself. The evidence asked for is the most recent six consecutive months inside the last year. In those six months the site must show more than 16.5 megawatt-hours from the grid, used as a stand-in for the annual figure. Thirty-three megawatt-hours is below the 100 megawatt-hours Ofgem uses to define a microbusiness, so a small plant can qualify. A head office, with no manufacturing site, cannot.

How much of the bill is covered

Passing the four tests gets a site into the scheme. It does not get it the full exemption. The guidance splits the relief by how much of the site’s electricity goes into making the eligible product.

A quarter or less: no exemption. More than a quarter and less than a half: half the exemption. A half or more: the full exemption. There is no sliding scale inside the bands. A site at 24 percent and a site at 5 percent are treated the same. A site at 49 percent does not get what a site at 50 percent gets.

One MPAN and one building can hold a machine shop, a store, a compressor room and an office. If the eligible process is not half the electricity, the exemption is half, or nothing. The guidance asks for each site’s MPAN, the bills and the products. It does not ask for a description of what the company hopes to do.

Power the site makes itself does not help the 33 megawatt-hour test. Behind-the-meter solar, combined heat and power, and a turbine on the roof are outside the scheme. Only electricity taken from the grid counts. A plant that has already cut its grid import by generating on site can fail a test that a neighbour, importing more, will pass.

Great Britain only. The law is still outstanding

The scheme is Great Britain. Northern Ireland is out. An applicant has to confirm that the support will not indirectly benefit activity there. A group with a plant in England and a plant in Belfast files for the English site only, and has to be able to say the money stays there.

The paperwork in the guidance is specific. A Companies House number. A passport or driving licence for the government login. An MPAN for each site. Six months of bills. The products, and evidence that they are the products. If the supply is private, a confirmation from the supplier that the arrangement is in scope. The department’s checker is the first step. A decision is due in January 2027.

The guidance itself has two cautions. The secondary legislation is not through. The department expects it in the autumn, subject to Parliament, and says the guidance falls if the law does not. The note on the extra payment eligible firms will receive in 2027, from government and through the supplier, has not been written yet. A saving quoted to a board before January is a ceiling, not an award.

The Supercharger is a different scheme. It is the network-charge discount for about 500 of the most electricity-intensive firms, steel, cement, glass and chemicals among them. It moved from 60 percent to 90 percent on 1 April. Different test, different line on the bill, already in force. Being on the Supercharger does not file this application, and filing this application does not renew the Supercharger.

For a company that buys power for a British plant, the work between 1 October and 30 November is the meter. The code is on the published list or it is off it. The product is the same. What still has to be got right is which site, which six months of bills, and what share of those units made the eligible part. At a quarter or below, the exemption is zero.