British Gas will donate 10% of its profits in order to help customers deal with the “duration” of the energy crisis.
Centrica, the owner of the property, said that the money would be used to fund an existing support fund. This will triple the assistance available for the most vulnerable customers this winter.
According to the firm, which made huge profits this year and promised grants of between £250-£750 to thousands of households,
However, this is only a fraction of what is needed to address the crisis in the country.
One energy company boss stated earlier this week that the cost was closer to £100bn.
British Gas will offer support based on its retail supply profits of £98m, before taxes, in the first half of 2022. According to British Gas, the initial donation would amount to £12m.
British Gas’ parent company Centrica reported adjusted operating profits in June of £1.3bn. This is an increase of £262m from a year ago. Most of the profit came from oil-and-gas drilling.
Paul de Leeuw, the director of RGU Energy Transition Institute at Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen, and an ex-executive at Centrica, said that British Gas’s initial donation would only be beneficial to 0.5% of its customers.
He explained to BBC Radio 4’s Today that although it was a nice gesture, the £12m initial donation did not amount to 1% of Centrica’s profits.
“They have 7.5 million residential energy customers in the UK. If you take a look at the money available, it’s likely that it will benefit about 40,000 people maximum, which is 0.5% of their customer base.
“So 99.5% of Centrica and British Gas customers probably won’t see any benefit from it.”
