£400 grant will be paid to everyone with an electricity meter

The £400 grant (replacing what was a £200 loan) will be paid to everyone with an electricity meter by their electricity retail supplier through discounts to their bills and for pre-paid meter users as a credit to their pre-pay arrangement. This means no fundamental disadvantage to off gas grid users of heating oil, they will just have very small electricity bills to compensate for much higher oil purchases. There is, of course, an issue for the small number of people not on the electricity grid at all who will get nothing. There will however be the question of people off the gas grid having to find very large sums to re-fill their oil tanks when the £400 will drip into their accounts by way of reduced electricity Bills, so the problem becomes mainly a cashflow one. For those on means tested benefits there will be £650 paid in two instalments, there are as yet no details specified about when. This could help with the cashflow issue depending on when it is paid. There may be a case for ACRE and other rural organisations to call for this to be paid up front to those off gas grid in order to enable them to fill oil tanks over the summer and smooth out demand whilst enabling timing choice to get the best price.