Funded Energy Redress Projects

Warm Island - Energy Saving Guidance will provide support for households in the second most fuel poor area in England, the Isle of Wight. They will provide a range of support to give the best, appropriate help including: energy events run in the local community, face to face meetings at outreach in Foodbanks and other help groups, an energy phoneline, online help and access to additional grant funding and further support. They will help empower over 3000 households to reduce their bills by teaching skills to manage and lower energy use in the home, supporting vulnerable consumers who have a long term physical or mental health condition, be on a very low income, from an elderly household, living in off-gas inefficient homes or otherwise disadvantaged from the energy market.

Warmer Homes West Midlands Phase 2 will build on two years of strong delivery that has already supported over 10,000 vulnerable householders.  The energy crisis means that more help is urgently needed, this will offer support to a further 13,550 struggling householders across the seven urban local authorities of the West Midlands Combined Authority.  Support will include a team of fully qualified energy advisors and community outreach workers, over the telephone, through case work, home visits and events and additionally, empower volunteers as local energy champions.  This builds on successful work in local communities particularly with those who are digitally excluded, from BAME communities or foodbank users. 

The Energy Saver Project aims to reduce participants' household bills, whilst maximising their income.  This will be achieved by providing consumers with support ranging from light touch information to full, tailored and ongoing casework. Clients will be assisted via multi channels including video platform, telephone, email and face to face, thereby providing a seamless and flexible service that is accessible to all. The target group are consumers who are considered to be vulnerable. This includes those on a low income and/or are vulnerable such as those spending >10% of net monthly income on utilities, those on low incomes those in receipt of DLA/PIP, JSA, ESA or UC, those with a disability/long term sickness, those of pensionable age, those with dependent children.

The North Staffordshire Green Doctor programme will add capacity to existing energy/welfare advice provision in an area made worse by the cost of living and energy price rises. Green Doctors, qualified energy advisors, will target 1600 households with more complex energy needs such as long-term ill-health or disability, and who find it difficult to engage with online/telephone-based advice services due to poor mental health and caring responsibilities. To ensure broad reach, Green Doctors will deliver targeted social marketing, events in fuel poor neighbourhoods to raise awareness of the service. Alongside wider providers, they will develop strategies to improve co-ordination/targeting of resources, ensuring the most vulnerable can access the level of help they need.

The Energy for life project will help vulnerable consumers through the Citizens Advice Dorset Energy Unit, by providing in depth advice and casework to 1,540 vulnerable households from a team of Energy Caseworkers. This aims to build financial resilience among vulnerable consumers and increase the likelihood of households being able to meet their heating requirements to stay warm and safe and avoid cold-related health problems.  This will be delivered through home visits and telephone advice appointments, in addition to internal referrals within the Citizens Advice service for further support (Household Support Fund, welfare benefit applications & appeals, debt advice and solutions, water company assist schemes).

The Care leavers as Energy Champions project will with Local Authorities (LA) to establish Local House Projects (HPs) across the UK to prepare and support young people leaving care to ‘live connected and fulfilling lives’. This energy project aims to inform, educate and raise awareness of energy efficiencies by providing intensive support with lasting solutions so that this vulnerable group can avoid fuel poverty and sustain their tenancies. They will work with young people to develop resources that work for them, and with young people as researchers and energy champions the project is geared to developing a young person led approach. Young people will be supported to develop energy aware behaviours as they move to independent living and staff and young people will be trained as energy champions to support young people who already face considerable challenges as young tenants which has been further exacerbated by the energy fuel crisis and the cost of living crisis.

The Midsteeple Quarter Hybrid Heating Network aims to install an innovative aquifer-fed water source heating system in Phase I of the Midsteeple Quarter development, based on a shallow open-loop borehole system, and to test and develop this for wider implementation in neighbouring Midsteeple Quarter buildings and other town centre properties. The organisation has already assessed the potential for using ground source heating and establishing a wider district heating network and plan to use Phase I as proof of this concept by drilling two boreholes, connecting up the building and installing an aquifer-fed (or innovative hybrid) heat pump system to provide this building and neighbouring properties with low cost, locally-generated, low carbon heating. This work will confirm the feasibility of the system, commission the well and trial the installation in a mixed-use commercial and residential building. The exploratory well will be used as part of the final commissioned system if successful.

The Energy YourWays project will deliver intensive energy advice to vulnerable older people living in Scarborough and Ryedale in, or at risk of, fuel poverty. Energy Advice workers will be deployed to target and reach those in the greatest need, working closely with local authorities, the voluntary sector, the health sector, housing providers and statutory services. Eighty workers and volunteers from will be trained to increase awareness of the impact of fuel poverty on older people. The project will also raise awareness amongst partner organisations and provide a community “Warm Room” – utilising community facilities as a place for people to come during the daytime to reduce their energy costs at home and remain warm.

RetrofitCredits is a new service that will unlock investment in social housing retrofit by verifying the emission reductions and social value of housing retrofit projects and originating carbon credits backed by those emission reductions. It will centre the impact of these retrofit activities on residents and communities through the incorporation of social value metrics, so that the funding unlocked through carbon credits doesn’t just reduce carbon, but also improves lives.

The pilot aims to test this methodology on up to 3,500 housing association homes undergoing retrofit. In doing so, this project will facilitate significant capital flows from businesses making carbon neutral or net-zero commitments to housing providers, reducing the overall cost of funding retrofit activities.