Citizens Advice published its response on 12 May 2023 to Ofgem's statutory consultation on amendments to the Electricity (Standards of Performance) Regulations 2015 for severe weather compensation1. The charity said it supports the amendments, which it described as giving greater protection to consumers, while recommending the draft Statutory Instrument be changed further1.
The amendments Citizens Advice welcomed cover four areas: allowing compensation to be paid by bank transfer and considering other electronic payment methods; an increase to the compensation cap; an inflation adjustment mechanism with current payments updated in line with the current inflation rate; and the removal of storm category 3 from existing regulations1.
"Citizens Advice supports the amendments which will give greater protection to consumers."
The organisation set out three areas where it considers the draft should go further. It said protection should extend to people who use sub-meters or pay landlords for electricity; that other digital payment methods should be made available to consumers as soon as practically possible; and that customers who experience a short temporary restoration of supply should be compensated appropriately1.
The response does not state the level of the increased compensation cap, the size of any inflation-linked uplift, or the timetable for the changes. Those figures have not been reported in the response1. The guaranteed standards of performance set the payments networks must make when they fail to meet service levels, and the consultation process is the route through which such rules are amended.
Why it matters for households
Severe weather compensation is the payment a household can receive when a storm-related power cut lasts longer than the thresholds in the regulations. The amendments as described would change how that money reaches people, moving beyond the current payment methods to bank transfer and potentially other electronic routes, and would raise the cap on what can be paid1. Linking payments to inflation matters because fixed compensation amounts lose value over time, so a mechanism that adjusts them keeps the real value of a payout closer to what was originally intended1.
The removal of storm category 3 from the regulations is a change to how storms are classified for compensation purposes, though the response does not set out what replaces it1. For a household, the practical question is whether a given storm still triggers a payment at all.
Citizens Advice's recommendations point to gaps that affect particular groups. Households on sub-meters, or those who pay a landlord rather than a supplier directly, are not covered by the protection as drafted, according to the response1. That includes many people in flats and shared buildings, who may face the same outage as a neighbour on a direct supply but without the same route to compensation. The point about short temporary restoration concerns the situation where supply comes back briefly and then fails again, which can reset the clock on how an outage is measured1.
The energy complaints and redress system and the consumer bodies that represent households are the routes through which such issues are raised. Ofgem is the body running the consultation.
What happens next
The response does not give a date for when the amended regulations will take effect, or for when Ofgem will publish its decision. No timetable has been reported1.