The Electricity and Gas (Standards of Performance) (Suppliers) Regulations 2015

Suppliers’ payment obligations

8.—(1) A supplier must meet each individual standard of performance set out in regulations 3 to 6.

(2) If a supplier fails to meet any individual standard of performance it must, for each such failure, make a payment of £30 (a “standard payment”) to the customer who is affected by the failure within 10 working days of the supplier’s initial failure to achieve the relevant individual standard of performance.

(3) If a supplier—

(a) fails to make a standard payment in accordance with paragraph (2); or

(b) fails to relay a distributed payment in accordance with regulation 7(1),

it must, for each such failure, make a payment of £30 (an “additional standard payment”) to the customer who is affected by the failure within 10 working days of that failure.

(4) The obligation to make an additional standard payment under paragraph (3) is additional to the obligation to make a standard payment under paragraph (2) or relay a distributed payment under regulation 7(1).

(5) In relation to any premises at which more than one person is a customer, a standard payment, distributed payment or additional standard payment to any of the customers in respect of those premises is a complete discharge of the supplier’s obligation to make the payment in question to all the customers of the premises.

(6) Nothing in, or done by a supplier in consequence of, these Regulations determines who is beneficially entitled to any payment made under these Regulations.

(7) Where a customer requests that a payment actually or potentially due to be made to the customer under these Regulations is made by a particular payment method, the supplier must not unreasonably withhold agreement to make the payment to the customer by that method.

(8) This regulation is subject to regulation 9 (exemptions and limitations to supplier payment obligations).

(9) In this regulation, “customer”—

(a) includes micro-business customer in the application of this regulation to an individual standard of performance in regulation 3 (appointments); and

(b) means, in the application of this regulation to any failure of a supplier to relay a distributed payment under regulation 7 (distributed payments), any person who is supplied or requires to be supplied with gas conveyed through pipes or electricity at premises which that person owns or occupies.