More than one in ten households in North Devon are in fuel poverty, with many off the gas grid and relying on electric night storage heating.

Cold and damp housing conditions impact on health and wellbeing. As well as causing or exacerbating serious physical health conditions such as strokes, heart attacks and asthma, they can contribute to other issues such as poor mental health, stress.

Maureen Fildes is one of our Project Development Coordinators, providing specialist energy advice in the North East of England. Here she shares some of her experiences.

Learnings from NEA’s Technical innovation fund field trials

The Technical Innovation Fund has been groundbreaking because it enabled us to get an insight into how many new technologies can help households in vulnerable situations to reduce their energy bills and improve the comfort of their homes.

NEA commissioned this report to help stimulate debate on the policy options we must consider as we seek to decarbonise heat alongside delivering fuel poverty strategies across the UK. It helpfully draws out some of the tensions and challenges we face in changing the way in which we heat our homes, and the authors help us to consider the cost implications and distributional impacts of different funding mechanisms.

This research investigated the relationship between fuel poverty and carbon monoxide (CO) risk in households on low incomes and in vulnerable situations.

The technology installed was Chop cloc, a retrofit heating controller over ride which turns the heating off for 15 to 45 minute in each hour as set by the resident to take advantage of radiant heat from the building fabric and contents. It claims not to affect thermal comfort, and to save up to 30% and an average of 16% on home heating bills.

This briefing compares the state of the UK housing stock and fuel poverty levels with 15 other European countries. It concludes that no other country of the 16 assessed performed as poorly overall as the UK across the range of indicators. The UK has among the highest rates of fuel poverty and one of the most energy inefficient housing stocks in Europe.