Given the stated aim to target low income, fuel poor and vulnerable households; NEA believes it is paramount that beneficiaries of the scheme receive adequate consumer protections.

NEA welcomes Ofwat’s recognition of affordability issues with water bills, highlighted by the 3 million customers in England and Wales saying they struggle to pay their water bills. Ofwat’s interventions to ensure bills are reduced by over 12% before inflation will make a significant difference to customers who are struggling to, or at risk of struggling to, pay their bills.

NEA has supported the Regulator’s work to protect more low income and vulnerable customers from unexpected price rises. The efficiency and cost effectiveness of gas distribution networks play a key role in tackling fuel poverty levels and we need to redouble our efforts to move as many households as possible who are reliant on home heating oil to cleaner, greener natural gas. This also provides low income households with a more flexible and affordable monthly or pay as you go option.

The evaluation consortium has been working together on evaluating the impacts of the Warm Homes Fund (WHF) over the winter of 2019-2020 and has heard first-hand of the very significant and positive effects that the funding has had on the lives of many families and households.

This project will install Tesla Powerwall 2 batteries in all-electric, storage heated properties in North Devon using an Economy 7 tariff type.

There are about 42,074 households in North Devon and the proportion of fuel poor households is estimated to be 11.6%. According to the Non-gas map, 47.1% of properties in North Devon are off the gas grid. North Devon Homes Ltd is the main social landlord in the area and rents 3,221 homes. Out of these, 623 are off the gas grid and likely to be on Economy 7 electricity tariffs. About 7,000 households in North Devon have Economy 7 meters.

This project installed three different combinations of technologies to 65 all-electric sheltered accommodation flats in Grimsby, Lincolnshire:

Nottingham Community Housing Association (NCHA) wanted to replace the old storage heaters in 24 of their properties. NCHA were involved in an earlier TIF project alongside Greenvision Energy Ltd whereby standard storage heaters and domestic hot water cylinders were replaced with newer versions. The storage heaters were replaced by Dimplex Quantum high heat retention storage heaters and water cyclinders with Dimplex EC Eau Ecsd cylinders.

The project was led by Cheshire East Council.