Rotherham Council has decided to reduce the district heating unit charge to save money for more than a thousand households. In March, the cabinet approved the increased charges to 20.68 pence per kWh for 2023/24 in alignment with the government’s energy price guarantee.

The current proposal sees a decrease from the approved charge to 15.94 pence per kWh – as the previously agreed unit charge now exceeds the Energy Price Guarantee and the Office of Gas and Electricity Markets (Ofgem) price cap for July 2023 onwards.

In a supporting document, it was added that “weekly prepayment charges are reduced by 59 per cent to 67 per cent depending on property size” and the charge “should be backdated” to April 3, of this year.

This means that for residents on pre-payment meters, a credit based on their actual usage between April 3 and July 31, 2023, will be applied to the heat meter in early August 2023.

The change will affect all 1,260 properties in the council’s 18 district heating schemes.

Rotherham Council Leader Coun Chris Read told a cabinet meeting: “I can’t remember a time we’ve had to change the district heating charges but it reflects, I think, the uncertainty in the energy market that we’ve all felt in our bills.

“When we set the charges the usual way back in March, we were near the end of the procurement that the council buys gas upfront in order to fuel the district heating schemes.

“The prices were exceptionally high at the moment in time. We took a view that rather than pass the full cost of those increases onto district heating users we would cap the amount they had to pay effectively the same rate that the government [set] for anybody else.”

This, he added, left the council with a budget deficit of approximately £2m. A document shows an operational deficit of £2.59m.

Rotherham Council lowers energy bills for more than 1,000 properties in its area