BICS · UK manufacturers · applications open 1 October

What could BICS take off your electricity bill?

Every 1 GWh of eligible grid electricity is worth roughly £35,000–£40,000 a year. Calculate the indicative value first, then check whether your sector, products and site evidence support a claim.

Calculate my BICS value → UK CBAM from 2027 →

Free calculator. Estimate on screen after entering your email · Independent advice · Fixed fees · No percentage of your saving

Start with what is live now

Capture BICS first. Prepare for CBAM next.

BICS has a defined 2026 application window and can create an immediate five-year electricity-cost benefit. UK CBAM follows in 2027. Meridian helps manufacturers quantify both without turning the first conversation into a data-gathering exercise.

BICS · Electricity levy exemption

See the £ value before you do the paperwork

At the government planning range, each 1 GWh of eligible grid electricity is worth about £35,000–£40,000 a year. The first-year route also includes an additional payment.

Applications: 1 Oct–30 Nov 2026 Explore BICS →

CBAM · Carbon tax on imports

Know your import exposure first

From 2027 imported steel, aluminium, cement, fertiliser and hydrogen carry a UK carbon price. Your supplier data, gathered in 2026, decides the bill.

Tax from Jan 2027 · plan now Explore CBAM →

Know roughly what you spend on electricity? Get an indicative BICS value in seconds. Enter your company, electricity figure and email to see the three possible amounts.

Calculate the BICS value →

Not sure whether you qualify for BICS? Search all 84 eligible SIC codes and all 1,641 eligible HS6 product codes from the Government’s final 2027 eligibility list.

Use the free BICS code lookup →

Forging company? SIC 2550 is in the final 2027 BICS scope. See the value scenarios, eligibility route and evidence to prepare before the window opens.

BICS for forging companies →

British industry makes a quarter more than in 2005, using a third less electricity. Two government statistical series appear to tell opposite stories about deindustrialisation. Read together, they show which sectors decoupled and which declined.

Read the analysis →

Eligible, but not sure what it is worth? The exemption is banded, and one percentage point at a boundary can halve both your annual saving and your one-off backdated payment. Start with a free site review. Any paid support is on a fixed fee, with no percentage of your saving.

Start with a free BICS site review →

Not sure whether a product is caught? Check any 6-, 8- or 10-digit commodity code against the current UK CBAM schedule.

Use the free CBAM scope checker →

Why Meridian

Independent, whole-stack, metals-native.

Independent

No supplier relationships or volume incentives that could compromise the advice. We answer to your P&L, nobody else's.

Whole-stack

BICS, CBAM and the UK ETS beneath both, and how they interact. We model the regulation as one connected cost, not one scheme in isolation.

Metals-native

15 years across base metals, iron ore derivatives and freight, applied to the supply chains these rules actually run through.

The regulatory stack

Three rules, one P&L.

Over the next three years UK manufacturers face a stack of new carbon and electricity regulation arriving together: the BICS electricity levy exemption this year, the CBAM carbon tax on imported steel and aluminium from 2027, and the UK ETS carbon price running underneath both.

Taken one at a time they look like separate compliance jobs. Mapped together, they move as one position on your P&L: BICS a saving to capture, CBAM and the ETS costs to manage. And the moves you make on one (where you source, how you contract, what you can prove) change what you gain or pay on the others.

Map my exposure →

Opportunity · this year

BICS: electricity levy exemption

Cuts a substantial slice of your power cost. One application window.

2026 →

New cost · imports

CBAM: carbon tax at the border

A UK carbon price on imported steel, aluminium, cement, fertiliser, hydrogen.

2027 →

The baseline underneath

UK ETS: the carbon price both track

Sets the reference CBAM matches and the cost BICS partly offsets.

Now

Anthony Salasidis

Founder, Meridian Trade Advisory

About Meridian

Markets expertise, pointed at a new kind of cost.

Meridian was founded by Anthony Salasidis, who spent 15 years in commodity and metals markets (base metals options, iron ore derivatives, and dry bulk shipping & FFA), much of it brokering for trading desks and institutional clients. He was voted the number one interdealer base metals options broker by Risk magazine.

That career was spent pricing and tracing the same materials these regulations now attach a cost to: steel, aluminium and the raw inputs and freight behind them. Meridian applies that discipline to a new line on the manufacturing P&L, quantifying the exposure, evidencing the number, and capturing the saving.

Get in touch

Start with a free exposure check.

Tell us your sector and what you import or consume, and we'll tell you quickly where you sit across the stack, which rules apply, and an indicative sense of what they're worth or what they'll cost. No cost, no obligation.

Here about the electricity levy exemption? The BICS value checker gives you an indicative saving and your eligibility position in about a minute.

✉ anthony@meridiantradeadvisory.co.uk in · Anthony Salasidis