Mayor Rahman tackles fuel poverty

In a Borough where too many residents live in fuel poverty, Mayor Rahman is set to launch an energy co-op which will allow residents to join together and use their buying power to reduce their energy tariffs.

Fuel poverty is defined as having to spend 10% or more of your household’s disposable income on heating (the average UK household spends just 3.3% of its income on heating). In Tower Hamlets, lower than average incomes and a relatively high number of hard to heat homes mean that many residents fall into the fuel poverty trap.

Many residents deal with fuel poverty by “under-heating their homes” as the fuel experts put it (“putting up with feeling cold”, as ordinary people may say). However, living in cold can affect your health. A home where the temperature is below 16°C (61°F) leaves its residents with reduced resistance to respiratory infection. Homes where the temperature stays below 12°C (52°F) can inflict more serious health effects which can even be fatal.

Tower Hamlets Council offers assistance to residents who cannot afford to heat their homes. The affordable warmth referral service provides a professional, one stop service that will:
survey your home for potential energy improvements;
•organise the work, via your landlord or by using grants you may be entitled to;
•check that you’re receiving all the benefits you’re entitled to;
•check that you’re not paying too much for your electricity/gas;
•provide you with tailored energy advice, based on your individual circumstances.

Contact the service at the Private Housing Improvement Team (PHIT), London Borough of Tower Hamlets, Mulberry Place (AH), PO Box 55739, 5 Clove Crescent, London E14 1BY, tel.: 020-7364 2521, email: energy.services@towerhamlets.gov.uk. The service is open from 9am to 5pm Monday to Friday.

•Asda Financial Services calculates that the average cost of gas and electricity is £1,322 a year (£25.42 a week), and it estimates that nearly three quarters of all households are cutting back on luxuries and one fifth of households are cutting back on food costs to pay their energy bills. The company also believes that nearly half (44%) are cutting back on the energy they use.
Asda has now launched an “Energy Compare and Save” service to expose the significant price differences that exist between gas and electricity suppliers and to make switching between suppliers easier – and it is offering everyone who switches a £20 Asda gift card.  Asda’s Energy Compare and Save service is at http://www.asdafinance.com/at-home/gas-and-electricity/ or you can telephone 0800-6345 185. It can take just seven minutes to enter your details, find the cheapest energy deal and switch suppliers.

•Energy company EON has estimated that UKhouseholds are spending £261 million each year on electricity used by appliances which could be switched off.  The findings reveal the most common energy-wasting blunder is leaving the TV on or on standby and that households have an average of 11 electrical appliances permanently plugged into sockets.
Beverley Maguire, Energy Fitness Expert at EON, said “Although gadgets and appliances can help make our lives easier, our hectic daily schedules mean that we often forget to unplug them, so many Brits are needlessly racking up higher energy bills without even realising it.
“Taking a second to unplug appliances once you’ve finished using them really can help cut energy wastage, and we’d urge anyone who hasn’t yet done so to take our Energy Fit Survey for other energy-saving ideas too.”
EON’s Energy Fit Survey can be found at eonenergyfit.com.
In January, E.ON launched its Reset Review which is designed to examine every aspect of E.ON’s relationship with its customers – from tariffs and bills to how customers pay, how products are sold and how support is offered. For further information, details of the improvements made to date or to join customers already on the YourSay panel, please visit eonenergy.com/reset .

•The Institution of Mechanical Engineers launched a policy statement on electricity storage technologies at the end of May. Engineers criticised the Government for failing to provide sufficient support for electricity storage technologies, which are becoming increasingly important to secure electricity supplies, and called for urgent action to support technologies which could put UKat forefront of $25 billion industry.
Dr Tim Fox, Head of Energy and Environment at the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, said:
“As the UK ramps up its dependence on power generation from intermittent renewable energy sources, like the wind, the need to develop electricity storage technologies becomes ever more pressing. These technologies hold the key to providing consumers with renewable electricity when they need it, rather than just when the wind is blowing. This will save on bills through not having to pay for dumped energy and unnecessary infrastructure.
“For too long we’ve been reliant on using expensive ‘back-up’ fossil-fuel plants to cope with the inherent intermittency of many renewables. Electricity storage is potentially cleaner and once fully developed is likely to be much cheaper.
“But Government incentives and policies to support development and deployment of electricity storage technologies are currently scant and ill-designed. The potential value of storage to the UK power network is at present not well understood by Westminster.”
UK electricity demand is set to double by 2050 due, in part, to the increase in use of electricity to provide heating and power cars. This increase in demand combined with the UK’s ambitious climate change targets and the EU Renewables Directive means the UK is set to rely increasingly on renewable power. Renewable technologies like wind and solar power, although presenting many benefits, are inherently intermittent and as such cause problematic swings in supply on the UK grid.
The UK currently has 2,800 MW of electricity storage capacity in the form of pumped hydro-electric storage. According to National Grid we will need 8,000 MW of electricity storage capacity by 2025 if the penetration of wind power in the network is 30%.
The worldwide market for electricity storage is estimated to be worth $20 billion – $25 billion a year by 2020.
The Institution’s Electricity Storage policy statement calls on Government to adopt the following recommendations:
1. Support actions to identify the true system benefit of electricity storage. As a matter of priority the UK’s Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) should carry out a detailed analysis to estimate the realistic requirements for electricity storage across the whole UK power system and its corresponding value to the nation.
2. Develop policy frameworks that reward the value of electricity storage in the UK’s power markets. The UK Government’s Electricity Market Reform (EMR), which is examining and revising the commercial and regulatory structure of the nation’s electricity market, should take into account the unique nature of electricity storage and remunerate investors and operators accordingly.
3. Encourage and supportUK development of storage technologies for exploitation in world markets. The UK Government should advance the commercial-scale demonstration of electricity storage technologies in theUK, and thereby create technical value thatUK companies can export overseas.