British Industrial Competitiveness Scheme (BICS) Explained: What Changes for UK Manufacturers From 2027

A new electricity levy exemption for more than 10,000 UK manufacturers takes effect from 2027, on top of the existing Supercharger relief for energy intensive industries.

British Industrial Competitiveness Scheme – Energy intensive businesses have had the British Industry Supercharger since April 2024, and from April 2026 its network charge compensation rose from 60% to 90% of qualifying costs.

The government has now finalised a second, separate scheme, the British Industrial Competitiveness Scheme (BICS), which extends electricity bill relief to a much wider pool of manufacturers from 2027.

The two schemes get conflated in a lot of the coverage doing the rounds because they use similar language and cover some of the same levies, so it is worth being precise about what BICS actually is before you assess whether your business qualifies.

What British Industrial Competitiveness Scheme Does

BICS exempts eligible businesses from the indirect cost of three levies that show up as non-commodity charges on an electricity bill: the Renewables Obligation (RO), Feed-in Tariffs (FiT) and the Capacity Market (CM). Contracts for Difference (CfD) costs are not included, which is the main product difference from the Supercharger, covered below.

Our guide to non-commodity costs sets out where RO, FiT and CM sit within the wider bill if you want the fuller picture.

Government estimates put the relief at around £35 to £40 per MWh of electricity consumed, worth up to £600 million a year across the scheme from April 2027, and capable of cutting an eligible firm’s electricity bill by up to 25%.

Key Dates

Milestone	Date
Consultation closed	14 May 2026
Legislation published	Autumn 2026
Year 1 eligibility window opens	1 October 2026
Eligibility confirmation target	8 January 2027
RO and FiT exemptions begin	1 April 2027
CM exemptions begin	1 October 2027
Backdated payment issued	April 2027, covering support from April 2026

The backdated payment is a one-off top-up so that businesses confirmed eligible are not penalised for BICS not existing yet when the scheme’s effective start date of April 2026 arrives.

Who Qualifies

BICS was originally expected to cover around 7,000 businesses. The finalised design extends that to more than 10,000, an expansion of roughly 3,000 firms. Eligible sectors sit in industries the government has earmarked for growth, including automotive, aerospace, steel, pharmaceuticals, metal fabrication, recycling, plastics, nuclear fuel processing, cement, glass and chemicals.

Crucially, BICS uses a lower bar than the existing EII exemption scheme. Electricity intensity thresholds are 0.9% for “frontier” sectors and 2.7% for “foundational” sectors, well below the Supercharger’s 7% test, and BICS applies a sector-level test only, with no business-level Gross Value Added (GVA) requirement.

Certification runs on a two-year cycle with a mandatory annual declaration in the years between recertification.

How BICS Differs From the British Industry Supercharger

The British Industry Supercharger and BICS are separate schemes that sit alongside each other, not a replacement of one by the other. A business cannot claim the same exemption twice under both, so anyone already holding EII status needs to check which scheme is more valuable to them rather than assume BICS is simply “more of the same”.

If your business already holds an EII certificate, the Supercharger remains the richer exemption: it covers CfD as well as RO, FiT and CM, and it carries the 90% network charge compensation that BICS does not offer. BICS is aimed squarely at manufacturers who are energy intensive enough to feel non-commodity charges on their bill, but not intensive enough to clear the Supercharger’s stricter GVA and electricity-intensity tests. For a lot of mid-sized manufacturers, that is exactly the gap BICS is designed to fill.

What To Do Now

If you are not sure whether you clear the Supercharger’s EII thresholds, do not assume BICS is a fallback without checking the finalised sector list once legislation is published in autumn 2026.

The Year 1 eligibility window opens 1 October 2026, with confirmation targeted for 8 January 2027, well ahead of the April 2027 exemption start date, and businesses that want the April 2027 backdated payment need to be in that first window.

Existing EII certificate holders should get a like-for-like comparison done before recertifying, since Supercharger and BICS reliefs cannot be stacked.

What This Means for Your Business

BICS is the largest expansion of non-commodity relief for manufacturers in years, but it only pays out if you apply in the right window and under the right scheme. For businesses managing energy costs as part of a wider energy procurement strategy, this is worth building into contract renewal timing now rather than waiting for the April 2027 start date to arrive.

Understanding exactly how RO, FiT and CM charges land on your bill today, covered in our non-commodity cost reporting service, is the starting point for working out which scheme, Supercharger or BICS, is worth more to you.

If you want help checking eligibility or modelling the impact of BICS against your current non-commodity charges, get in touch to speak to one of our energy consultants today.