Government spending on payment claims by energy companies who offer discounts on business energy contracts has hit a new peak.

A few months ago, the government launched the Energy Bill Relief Scheme (EBRS) in response to soaring gas and electricity prices, which have been driven up by a combination of factors including a global energy crunch, low wind speeds leading to reduced renewable energy output, and a surge in demand as the economy recovers from the Covid-19 pandemic.

According to the latest data, gathered by the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero on the EBRS payments in Britain and Northern Ireland, in total, the payments to energy suppliers to provide electricity bill discounts amounted to £794 million during the last week of February.

This compares to the previous claim window, the sixth when £341,3 million were spent for similar claims.

The government report suggests there were a total of 1,577,500 discounted contracts across the seventh claim window for both Britain and Northern Ireland.