Our Budget and CSR submissions recommend ways to support struggling households to keep warm this winter at a time when energy prices are increasing, incomes are reducing, and there are other financial pressures on households like rising inflation. It also recommends longer term actions to end fuel poverty through increased spending on energy efficiency and making the uplift to Universal Credit permanent.

NEA welcomes the extension and expansion of the ECO scheme until at least April 2026 and fully supports the consultation’s continued, critical focus on low-income and vulnerable households and greater support for deeper retrofits for the least energy efficient homes.

This research study has been completed with the support of Smart Energy GB to evaluate the potential benefits of smart prepayment, investigate remaining barriers that are preventing further uptake and consider a range of potential interventions to maximise the rollout of smart prepayment in the remaining years of the rollout.

This year’s UK Fuel Poverty Monitor (UKFPM) reviews the events that have resulted from the COVID-19 pandemic, and how they have impacted vulnerable energy consumers and the organisations that look to support them, cataloguing the response to this challenge from these organisations. It concludes with an investigation of the policies, strategies and other key actions that are urgently needed to address the impact of the pandemic this winter and beyond.

This year, the focus of the Monitor is on progress in delivering existing fuel poverty strategies in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Learnings from NEA’s Technical innovation fund field trials

The Health and Innovation Programme was a £26.2 million programme to bring affordable warmth to fuel poor and vulnerable households in England, Scotland and Wales. The programme launched in April 2015 and has delivered energy efficiency advice and measures to over 9000 households.

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.