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Providing blanket support for energy bills next winter would be “completely inefficient” and a waste of money, EDF’s managing director of customers has said.
Philippe Commaret has also called for a social energy tariff to be implemented as early as this October, well ahead of the April 2024 deadline many in the industry have recently called for.
Speaking at Utility Week’s Customer Summit in Birmingham this week, the EDF director reiterated his support for a social tariff but was asked whether an extension of the Energy Bills Support Scheme was warranted as interim measure for next winter.
He said: “I think blanket support is completely inefficient and it’s wasting money… If there are 30% of UK households that are in fuel poverty, it means that there are 70% which are not. So spoiling money on 70% of UK households is not a good thing.
“I think the question is why are we waiting for April next year to implement a social tariff? The question is why wouldn’t we implement it in October?”
Making a comparison with how almost overnight the country switched to working from home during the pandemic, Commaret said he believed the same principle can be applied to quickly implementing a social tariff.
“Once again, it might not be perfect, but it’s better to have a targeted scheme…” he added.
Commaret also said the same principle behind the government’s Energy Price Guarantee (EPG), in that it caps unit rates, should be applied to any social tariff. Furthermore, he said that to ensure the right people are targeted, he believed it was up to the government to use its data to do this.
“I think that the question is not whether we need, or not, a social tariff, it’s what type of social tariff do we need? We need a social tariff where the government is defining the rules, who is eligible for the social tariff.
“We need a social tariff that is designed like the EPG, in the way that it reduces the price that the customers are paying but still the customers are incentivised to reduce and manage their consumption.”
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