British Industrial Competitiveness Scheme and other support for energy-intensive industry

Who this is for

This page covers targeted measures for energy-intensive industry and manufacturing, not general small-business help. If you run a shop, café, salon or office, you are almost certainly not eligible, and the more useful page is government help with business energy bills. If you do run a factory or process plant, read on.

The main schemes at a glance

Scheme	Aimed at	What it does
British Industry Supercharger (including Network Charging Compensation)	Around 500 of the most energy-intensive firms, in sectors such as steel, ceramics, glass and chemicals	Cuts electricity network charges; the compensation rate rises from 60% to 90% from 1 April 2026, once the legislation is confirmed
British Industrial Competitiveness Scheme (BICS)	Electricity-intensive manufacturers in Industrial Strategy growth sectors	Exemption from Renewables Obligation and Feed-in Tariff costs from April 2027 and Capacity Market costs from October 2027
Climate Change Agreements	Energy-intensive operators that sign up to targets	Reduced Climate Change Levy rates

British Industry Supercharger and network charging compensation

The Supercharger is a package of measures for the most energy-intensive industries. One part is the Network Charging Compensation (NCC) scheme, which pays back a share of the electricity network charges these firms face. Network charges are the costs of moving power over the grid, shown on bills as items such as TNUoS and DUoS; see what are TNUoS and DUoS charges.

In July 2025 the government consulted on lifting the NCC discount from 60% to 90% and said around 500 firms would benefit. Elexon, which administers the scheme, said in November 2025 that the 90% rate takes effect from 1 April 2026 once the legislation is confirmed, and that the application window would be doubled to two months. The scheme is only open to businesses the government classes as energy-intensive industries, which is a small group of heavy users; a typical small firm will not be in scope.

British Industrial Competitiveness Scheme (BICS)

BICS cuts electricity costs for eligible manufacturers by exempting them from the indirect costs of three policy schemes: the Renewables Obligation (RO), Feed-in Tariffs (FiT) and the Capacity Market (CM). When it was announced, the government said the benefit could be up to £40 per megawatt hour and put the number of eligible manufacturers at over 7,000, an indicative estimate.

GOV.UK's guidance for applicants (first published 10 August 2026, updated 12 October 2026) says:

• The first application window runs from 1 October 2026 to 30 November 2026, and an application cannot be changed once submitted.
• The RO and FiT exemptions start in April 2027 and the CM exemption in October 2027.
• The scheme depends on changes to the secondary legislation behind RO, FiT and CM, which still need parliamentary approval.
• To qualify, a business must be on Companies House, have an eligible SIC code in an Industrial Strategy growth sector with electricity intensity above set thresholds (0.9% for "frontier" industries, 2.7% for "foundational" ones), and manufacture eligible products in Great Britain.
• Each site must use at least 33 MWh of grid electricity a year.
• BICS and the Supercharger cannot both apply to the same electricity.

Eligibility is explained further in who qualifies for BICS.

A quick sizing example

The headline figure of £40/MWh is a ceiling, not a guarantee. If a factory uses 2,000 MWh a year, the maximum would be 2,000 × £40 = £80,000. If the actual relief were half that, it would be £40,000. A site using 100 MWh would see at most 100 × £40 = £4,000. A site using less than 33 MWh a year (33,000 kWh) does not meet the site threshold at all. Actual relief depends on eligibility, pro-rating for any ineligible activity on site, and how the levies are passed through by your supplier.

What RO, FiT and CM costs are

These three items rarely appear by name on a small business bill, but they sit inside most electricity prices:

• Renewables Obligation (RO): requires suppliers to buy certificates from renewable generators; the cost is passed on per kWh.
• Feed-in Tariffs (FiT): pays small-scale generators for the power they produce; again recovered through suppliers' prices.
• Capacity Market (CM): pays power stations and other providers to be available when demand is high, to keep the lights on in winter.

Because BICS removes these costs only for eligible sites, an eligible manufacturer should see them shrink or disappear from its supplier's itemised charges once the exemptions start. If your contract is fully fixed, ask your supplier how an exemption will be passed through, because the levies may be bundled into a single unit rate. See non-commodity charges explained for the wider picture.

Climate Change Agreements

Operators that meet energy-efficiency targets under a Climate Change Agreement can receive a reduced rate of the Climate Change Levy. For 2026-27 and 2027-28 the main CCL rate is 0.801p/kWh and 0.827p/kWh respectively, and the CCA discounts are 92% for electricity and 89% for gas. Using the 2026-27 figures, a site using 3,000,000 kWh of electricity would pay a full rate of 3,000,000 × 0.00801 = £24,030, but with the 92% discount only 24,030 × 0.08 = £1,922.40. See Climate Change Agreements.

How to check what you already get

1. Ask your supplier for an itemised breakdown of non-commodity costs (network, RO, FiT, CM and so on) for the last year.
2. Check whether your invoices already show any exemption or compensation, and from what date.
3. Confirm your annual consumption per site in MWh: divide kWh by 1,000.
4. Find the SIC code registered for your company at Companies House and compare it with the BICS guidance.
5. If you think you qualify, note the application windows; missing one may delay relief.

Are there other schemes?

Other schemes with similar aims exist or have been proposed, and we have not verified their current terms, so we will not describe them here. Check GOV.UK's industrial strategy pages, and ask your supplier or an energy consultant which exemptions already apply on your invoice.

What if you do not qualify?

• Treat energy purchasing as a project. Ask about fixed versus flexible contracts: fixed vs flexible.
• Look at demand: supply capacity charges and half-hourly meter data.
• Look at on-site generation and storage: solar and batteries.

Next steps

• Check your sector against the BICS guidance on GOV.UK.
• Check whether any levy is already exempted on your bill.
• Read about factory and manufacturing energy.