Directive 2012/27/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 25 October 2012 on energy efficiency, amending Directives 2009/125/EC and 2010/30/EU and repealing Directives 2004/8/EC and 2006/32/EC (Text with EEA relevance) (c. 27)

ANNEX VII U.K. [F1 Minimum requirements for billing and billing information based on actual consumption of electricity and gas]

Textual Amendments

F1 Substituted by Directive (EU) 2018/2002 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 December 2018 amending Directive 2012/27/EU on energy efficiency (Text with EEA relevance).

1. Minimum requirements for billing U.K.

1.1. Billing based on actual consumption U.K.

In order to enable final customers to regulate their own energy consumption, billing should take place on the basis of actual consumption at least once a year, and billing information should be made available at least quarterly, on request or where the consumers have opted to receive electronic billing or else twice yearly. Gas used only for cooking purposes may be exempted from this requirement.

1.2. Minimum information contained in the bill U.K.

Member States shall ensure that, where appropriate, the following information is made available to final customers in clear and understandable terms in or with their bills, contracts, transactions, and receipts at distribution stations:

(a)

current actual prices and actual consumption of energy;

(b)

comparisons of the final customer’s current energy consumption with consumption for the same period in the previous year, preferably in graphic form;

(c)

contact information for final customers’ organisations, energy agencies or similar bodies, including website addresses, from which information may be obtained on available energy efficiency improvement measures, comparative end-user profiles and objective technical specifications for energy-using equipment.

In addition, wherever possible and useful, Member States shall ensure that comparisons with an average normalised or benchmarked final customer in the same user category are made available to final customers in clear and understandable terms, in, with or signposted to within, their bills, contracts, transactions, and receipts at distribution stations.

1.3. Advice on energy efficiency accompanying bills and other feedback to final customers U.K.

When sending contracts and contract changes, and in the bills customers receive or through websites addressing individual customers, energy distributors, distribution system operators and retail energy sales companies shall inform their customers in a clear and understandable manner of contact information for independent consumer advice centres, energy agencies or similar institutions, including their internet addresses, where they can obtain advice on available energy efficiency measures, benchmark profiles for their energy consumption and technical specifications of energy using appliances that can serve to reduce the consumption of these appliances.