Under the plans, those living near new pylons across the UK are set to receive up to £250 a year off their bills over 10 years, in the form of a £125 discount every 6 months
People living near pylons could be set to save £2,500 off their bills under new plans announced by the government.
Under the plans announced on Friday, those living near new pylons across the UK are set to receive up to £250 a year off their bills over 10 years, in the form of a £125 discount every 6 months. The energy department estimates this could benefit up to 400,000 households, in a move minister for energy consumers Miatta Fahnbulleh says will give communities a stake in new pylons being built.
She told the Mirror: “My view on this is we need to build our energy infrastructure across the country to make sure that we are delivering homegrown clean energy for people, but critically to make sure that we’re securing our energy security and communities that host energy infrastructure and pylons should have a stake in that.” It comes after Chancellor Rachel Reeves dismissed Donald Trump’s ‘con job’ wind turbine claim.
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Ms Fahnbulleh added: “The principle behind this is, if you host this, you should be one of the people that benefits and so the discount of £250 pounds a year for 10 years, I hope is something the community sees as a benefit for teaming up with us and doing their part in order to build out the infrastructure that we need across the country.”
She claimed reducing bills was the key focus of the energy department, especially due to the “cost of living crisis”. She explained: “We know that energy is a big factor within that and so, whether it’s our core mission to get to clean power because we think that our links to global fossil fuel markets, is leaving us exposed, it’s the reason that we had that big energy crisis, and so we’ve got to break that link with home grown clean power.”
It comes as Ofgem unveiled proposals to bring in rules that will see consumers eligible for £40 compensation if they have to wait more than six weeks for a smart meter installation, as well as faulty meters and those not operating in smart mode which are not fixed within 90 days. The regulator helped enforce the repair or replacement of more than 600,000 faulty meters since July last year.
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