Temporary Business Energy Support Scheme (“TBESS”) and other supports

This scheme, will be administered by the Irish Revenue, and intends to alleviate the pressures faced by businesses that are experiencing unprecedented increases in their electricity and gas costs. The scheme must comply with the EU State Aid Temporary Crisis Framework.

Who qualifies for this scheme?

TBESS is aimed at businesses that are carrying on a trade or profession, which are chargeable to tax under Case I or II of Schedule D income. In addition, certain charities and sporting bodies can also avail of the scheme.

These eligible businesses must be able to demonstrate that the average unit price per their relevant energy bill has increased by at least 50% during a claim period between September 2022 and February 2023 when compared with the average unit price for the corresponding period that is 12 months prior.

Energy Bill refers to an electricity or gas bill.

How much is this worth to a business?

Qualifying businesses will be able to claim a cash payment, equal to 40% of the uplift in energy costs in a calendar month compared to the costs suffered in the same calendar month the previous year.

The monthly payment is up to a maximum of €10,000 per trade. If a business can identify that it carries on its trade from more than one location it may be able to increase the cap by €10,000 for each location, up to a maximum of €30,000 per month.

Information needed to make the claim

Revenue are currently in the process of developing a facility on Revenue Online Service (ROS) that will allow businesses to register for TBESS and make a claim under the scheme. It is anticipated that this facility will be available from the end of November 2022.

Details from the relevant energy bill for the claim period and the corresponding period 12 months prior will be required to make the claim. If a business does not have a corresponding energy bill, then a deemed reference unit price will apply. This deemed monthly reference unit price will be made available by the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland based on data provided by suppliers and published in due course. 

A claim must be made within four months of the end of the claim period to which the electricity or gas bill relates.

Other features of this scheme that a business should be aware of

Businesses that wish to avail of this scheme will have to ensure they have an up to date tax clearance, that is that they are fully up to date with all tax filings, tax payments, and tax registrations where necessary. Any business that has debt warehoused under the Debt Warehousing Scheme will be treated as compliant for the purposes of TBESS provided it continues to be eligible for the Debt Warehousing Scheme. It is important that tax clearance is in place as soon as possible so that businesses are ready to make a claim under this scheme when the facility becomes available on ROS.

Business will also have to confirm when filing a claim for TBESS that it has completed a carbon footprint exercise and is taking steps to reduce energy use.

Other supports available to businesses 

There are other targeted direct supports and government backed loans available to businesses.  One such support is the Enterprise Ireland Ukraine Enterprise Crisis Scheme.  This scheme provides two streams of supports to manufacturing and Internationally Traded Services companies.

These streams will provide certain businesses suffering liquidity problems and those dealing with significant rise in their energy costs with funding by way of non-repayable loans and grants for direct costs.  Both these streams can be applied for now from Enterprise Ireland, there is a deadline for applications of 1 December 2022 for stream 1 and 2 March 2023 for stream 2.

Contact us

For additional information on any of the energy supports available to business, please contact our expert team or your usual Grant Thornton contact.