Heating oil – how much!

Wonder how they’re doing the admin, is it the last place we ordered from or ‘whoever’ we ordered from last year?

It comes from your electricity provider

We’re down to about 300L and I see crude prices are rising slightly.  Had a look at NWF and they’re quoting the same as last week @ 74p and another (now pricey) co are after 82p but boilerjuice are today quoting 69p for all delivery timescales expect emergency!
Do we think that’s an error?

It comes from your electricity provider

Now I’m confused.

Do folk with mains electric & gas get two payments from their ‘dual-fuel’ provider?

We already get a payment from our electricity provider (£66 pm), should we be now getting something else for our oil?

Yes, you will get £200 towards alternative heating fuel (i.e. you’re not on mains gas) via your electricity supplier, who gets it from hmrc to pass on to you. If you pay by DD it seems your electric supplier will ‘rebate’ it to your bank account.

No news here on ours from EON yet. We’re on a smart prepayment meter, so will likely just go on our meter credit rather than to our bank account.

Ovo just credited our alternative fuel payment today.

That’s in addition to the £66 that everyone gets

Yep my £200 alternative fuel payment has just been credited into my ovo electricity acct. They say it will be automatically DD’ed into my bank acct shortly.

Anyone on Bulb heard anything about the £200 from them?

Anyone on Bulb heard anything about the £200 from them?

Octopus have made no comment about the AFP at all – I’ve emailed them to enquire why.

No gas and have Air Source heating. Payment of £200 dropped into eon next account on the 12th Feb.

No gas and have Air Source heating. Payment of £200 dropped into eon next account on the 12th Feb.

You shouldn’t have got it should you? Electric heating is excluded….

https://www.gov.uk/get-help-energy-bills/alternative-fuels

You’re eligible for this payment if the main way you heat your home uses:

tank or bottled gas
liquid petroleum gas (LPG)
oil
wood
solid fuel

Guessing their list is imperfect!

Octopus have made no comment about the AFP at all – I’ve emailed them to enquire why.

Yep, radio silence from Octopus here too, so let us know what they say

Electric heating is excluded….

But that doesn’t make sense does it?

If you use gas and electric for heat and power you get £400

If you use electric for both heat and power you get £400

If you use oil and electric for heat and power you get £600

Why should someone who uses electric just for lights/TV/cooking get the same as someone who uses it to heat the house as well!

Because the government also placed a cap on your price per unit for electricity and gas. There was no such cap for oil. We’re still paying double what it was just over a year ago. For most of the last year it’s been 2.5x and for a period it was 4-5x.

But that doesn’t make sense does it?

If you use gas and electric for heat and power you get £400

If you use electric for both heat and power you get £400

If you use oil and electric for heat and power you get £600

Why should someone who uses electric just for lights/TV/cooking get the same as someone who uses it to heat the house as well!

I’m not saying it makes sense! I’m just saying that ASP (AKA electric heating) is meant to be excluded.

I guess the debatable logic is that if you are using electric for heating then you are already benefiting from a capped tariff which is basically subsidised energy from the government. If you’re on oil then there is no subsidy so the 200 quid is to compensate for that.

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1130933/domestic-alternative-fuel-payment-scheme-suppliers-guidance.pdf

Interestingly(?), this is the document that is sent to the suppliers and details the methodology. As far as I can see no effort has been made at all to identify houses with ASHP, so presumably everyone who doesn’t have a gas MPAN (and meets the other criteria – but basically anywhere where most people are on oil) is getting it even if they’re not eligible.

I guess someone figured the penetration of ASHP/GSHP was sufficiently low as to not to be worth the effort (cost) to filter them out.

No sign of a payment from British Gas, no news on their website and their live chat agent just copy pasted the gov.uk website text stating before end of Feb…

If you’re on oil then there is no subsidy so the 200 quid is to compensate for that.

(Although the cost of oil has dropped by about 30% since the AFP was first announced)

I get that, but I’m more in line with what Ewan posted – it’s everyone without gas in their vicinity.

Bulb customer here and just had the AFP paid into my account, which is nice.

Bulb customer here and just had the AFP paid into my account, which is nice.

Thanks for the heads-up – has appeared in my Octopus (ex-Bulb) account too.

Ha….. Just checked my Octopus account and the £200 has just gone in!

Very strange there’s not been any communication about it though.

Edit: checked the account for the place by the beach (the one with electric heating) and that’s had the £200 also.

👍

Yep, Octopus have paid. I swapped from Shell Energy on January 23rd so was worried there would be a glitch, but I’ve got both the £67 monthly rebate and the £200 one-off payment.

Heres a fun question…. Is someone who has electric based heating who has read this thread / that government page and received the payment obligated to make reasonable efforts to pay it back as they now know they’re not elligable?

If you get a payment into your bank account you shouldn’t have, you’re not allowed to keep it. Is this any different? Or are you in fact meant to have received it because the government’s implementation of its policy contradicts the policy itself (it has just supplied a list of addresses to the electricity suppliers saying ‘pay this guy’)?

they now know they’re not elligable?

What makes you think electric heating is not eligible?

As it’s the most expensive heating there is it seems right that is included.

(I used nearly 100kwh -£35 – to heat just an open plan kitchen/lounge and an attached bedroom to 17c for 48 hours – no water heating. Upside down house so no heat lost upstairs…. It was 11c downstairs)

It’s the alternative heating payment with gas being the norm – everything other than gas is an alternative heating method.

What makes you think electric heating is not eligible?

It’s well hidden but tacked on to end of paragraph 3.5 section c

It says

people who primarily heat electrically are not part of AFP scope and will be eliminated using census data about heating type.

May have missd this in the thread but how do your leccy supplier or government know who to give the additional payment to?

We have oil heating and a log burner. We’ve not heard a peep from British Gas.

EDIT: There it is. Right in the comment above this one. Census data.

Sharkbait – this page lists the elligable fuels : https://www.gov.uk/get-help-energy-bills/alternative-fuels

Electric heating isn’t one of them. I’m not saying it’s fair, I’m just pointing out facts. I imagine flats in blocks in towns that use storage heaters etc won’t have got the payment for example.

alternative heating payment with gas being the norm – everything other than gas is an alternative heating method

It’s the alternative *fuel* payment. Electricity isn’t an alternative fuel.

So is this £200 free ? If you end up having to pay it back like gas/electricity I would prefer not to have it in the first place

Don’t worry it’s a subsidy rather than a weird loan.

OVO have just paid our £200. It went into our balance at the start of the week and is now pending in my bank account.

Just checked and the payment is there from Octopus.

To answer the question in the title I have just paid 75p (+vat) a litre for 1000 litres.If you have to have it you have to have it

Just checked my EON account and my £200 went in on the 12th. No email or confirmation sent though. Think I might just leave it there. £66 subsidy ending soon, so would help smooth out the first few months DD’s until drop to summer usage.

Electric heating not included as that is already protected by the price cap. No price cap on oil. Yes, heating oil has dropped slightly now, but that didn’t help if like me you had no choice but to fill up when it was higher. The £200 means I paid the equivalent of what I would have today.

people who primarily heat electrically are not part of AFP scope and will be eliminated using census data about heating type.

Ahh, well the place by the beach is, and always has been, a holiday house and I’m pretty sure we’ve never completed any census data for it (we’ve owned it from new in 1980).

So this is the thing….. the village the house is in does not have gas anywhere near it, so everybody is on either electric, oil or LPG.  Our house is in a row of 5 and the house 2 doors away put oil in some time ago – so according to that doc they can get the £200 + the £400, but we should only get the £400 despite using a far more expensive fuel for heating. Doesn’t really make sense!

I think the reality is it’s just too complicated to do accurately so they’ve made assumptions and painted with a big brush.

I agree though, that those in an area with a gas supply should not get the £200 if they have changed to a heat pump.

Still nothing from EON here.

I suspect being on prepayment is the delay,but can’t find anything. We’re still on the 5th bar, so no rush for oil, but it would be good for the electric.

Interestingly(?), this is the document that is sent to the suppliers and details the methodology. As far as I can see no effort has been made at all to identify houses with ASHP, so presumably everyone who doesn’t have a gas MPAN (and meets the other criteria – but basically anywhere where most people are on oil) is getting it even if they’re not eligible.

Remember though that the price ‘cap’ isn’t an actual ‘cap’ but just an average-based cap – and gas is a far cheaper way to heat a house than electricity.

And based on our payments, the criteria seems to be “doesn’t get mains gas”.

Hilarious part of our issue is a massive gas main runs through the field behind our houses, but there’s no domestic supply to the village!

We’ve had our £200 from Octopus

Had my £200 from octopus today 🙂

Just checked my Bulb account (now moved to Octopus)- £200 in there but no communication at all.

1500 litres earlier in the week at 73p/l

Still waiting for my £200 🙄

Clubby, you think that’s funny. In shetland we had half the north sea oil and gas coming in and not a sniff of gas to be had anywhere. They even burned off the excess at sullom voe just to rub it in 🤣