ScottishPower to Cut Energy Bills for Ages 60 and Over on Welfare Benefits

ENERGY provider ScottishPower has announced a new social tariff for its most vulnerable customers.

The firm said it will offer annual savings of up to GBP211, available from January and the social tariff will be open to customers who are aged 60 or above and in receipt of a social welfare benefit.

The saving was announced with a range of measures, including spending GBP10m on the tariff programme over the next 14 weeks - which will help an estimated 230,000 customers this winter.

ScottishPower said the tariff was part of a GBP240m investment over the next three years in social measures and energy efficiency programmes that will deliver "a comprehensive range of fuel poverty and energy efficiency initiatives that will help lift customers out of fuel poverty and reduce bills".

Willie MacDiarmid, ScottishPower's retail director, said: "The social tariff is an important part of our combined approach to help our most vulnerable customers.

"We believe discounted prices, together with access to energy efficiency measures and benefits health checks, will provide customers with a sustainable approach to address each element known to contribute to fuel poverty - the cost of fuel, the energy efficiency of the property and the household income.

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We must turn up the green heat of technology

The idea of being able to solve both our economic problems and climate change by building a low-carbon economy is enormously attractive. But it looks as though some countries had their Green New Deal years ago.

Take wind power, a huge growth area. We don't make a single wind turbine in Britain. We import from Spain, Germany and Denmark, which got the wind in their sails long ago and now have 90 per cent of all the industry jobs. Or nuclear. We have only one postgraduate nuclear engineering course - at Manchester University. Our nuclear engineers are as few and ageing as our nuclear plants. The consensus seems to be that any new plants will be built mostly with French and American components, and French labour.

Even solar energy is dominated by Germany, where nearly half a million houses have solar roofs because its Government pays above-market rates for individuals selling power back to the grid. You can argue about the specifics of the subsidies. But they have given Germany a market lead. Britain has ambitions to becoming the leading exporter of carbon capture and storage technology. But the kind of demonstration plant it wants to build is already being constructed in China.

Wave and tidal power are a better bet: Britain has some of the world's leading marine engineering companies. Bain & Co, the consulting firm, thinks that the UK could create 2,100 tidal jobs by 2020. That is a trickle, though the export potential must be higher. Offshore wind might generate 57,000 UK jobs, according to Bain - but the Danes are ahead of us there too.

Behind the audacity of hope lies the prosaic reality that green jobs in Britain may be few, at least in the short term, and most will require the kind of brawn that is needed to insulate people's homes, not the kind of brain that generates high-value exports. We still have clever designers and scientists, but someone else is making the kit. John Rose, the chief executive of Rolls-Royce, said recently that we have acted “as if innovation and creativity were not words appropriately associated with manufacturing”. Britain thinks of itself as “post-industrial” - but the energy revolution will involve enormous amounts of manufacturing, which we should be part of.

Britain is behind the green curve for two reasons: lack of funding and lack of clarity for investors. In a paper published this week by the think-tank Policy Exchange (of which I am a trustee) Dieter Helm, Professor of Energy at Oxford, argues that Britain's energy policy is no longer fit for purpose. Britain's liberalised energy markets were created in the 1980s when we produced more oil and gas than we needed. The main objective was to bring prices down. Today we need energy supplies to be secure and low-carbon - not something that the liberalised market will naturally create. Ed Miliband, the Energy and Climate Change Secretary, said this week that the Government must be more interventionist. He is right. But the Government needs to stop dithering on regulation and set a clear price for carbon - the price of pollution - beyond 2020. That will give businesses the certainty they need to invest in green technology.

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Ten ways to cut your energy bills

Energy companies say they may pass on the price reductions, but not until spring at the earliest – and even then, cuts may only be in the order of 10pc. This will hardly make a dent in the punishing 47pc price increases seen so far this year in gas bills and the 29pc rise in electricity costs, which have added £381 to the average household bill.

SHOP AROUND

This is the easiest way to cut bills, yet latest figures just released by energy watchdog Ofgem show that more than a third of households have never switched suppliers for any type of fuel.

CHECK YOUR BILLS

One-in-20 of us never checks their bills and so could be in for a nasty shock.

Estimated bills – where the meter has not been read – can hit householders in two ways. Either they pay too much, effectively giving their energy supplier an interest-free loan, or they have a shock when a massive bill arrives that they struggle to pay.

PAY THE RIGHT AMOUNT

Almost 6m British households who pay their energy bills by direct debit are in credit to their gas supplier by an average of £79. However, before everyone rushes to ask for a refund – there is a reason for this.

Energy price rises mean that householders need to build up an even bigger credit in the summer months to cover the extra costs of winter heating bills.

REDUCE YOUR CONSUMPTION

Some energy-saving measures, including turning off lights when you leave a room and not heating an empty home, are obvious. However, others may be harder to identify.

Go online and fill in a free Energy Savers Report at britishgas.co.uk and find out how to cut your energy bills by up to a third. For free energy advice, talk to your supplier or visit energysavingtrust.org.uk or call your local Energy Efficiency Advice Centre on 0800 512 012.

WASTE LESS

The biggest energy savings come from insulation, as nearly 50pc of all the heat lost in the average home is through the roof and walls. A further 20pc is lost through ventilation and draughts and a fifth through window panes and frames.

Installing 270mm (10 inches) of loft insulation can save up to 15pc on your heating costs and cavity wall insulation can save up to £160 a year on heating bills. Every energy supplier has been mandated to help customers improve energy efficiency and many give discounts to customers towards the cost of insulation.

In addition, there are also grants (under the Warm Front scheme in England, Warm Deal in Scotland and Warm Homes in Northern Ireland) for cavity wall and loft insulation. Visit energysavingtrust.org.uk, eaga.co.uk, www.scotland.gov.uk or warmfront.co.uk for details.

Pensioners over 70 and anyone on income or disability-related benefits can claim up to £2,700 of energy efficiency improvements (or £4,000 if oil central heating is recommended). The over-60s can receive £300 towards central heating installation if they do not have any or their current system is inoperable.

Even those who do not qualify for government help can save by using low-cost insulation. Fitting a jacket to a hot water tank can cut wastage by three-quarters – a cash saving of around £40 a year – and insulating hot water pipes can save a further £10 a year.

Other low-cost measures include installing draught excluders on doors, windows and letter boxes and it costs nothing to close curtains at dusk and shut windows when the heating is on.

TURN IT DOWN OR OFF

"Energy efficiency advice is beginning to filter through to consumers," said a spokesman for npower. "Gas consumption has fallen by around 12pc as a result. Electricity is the next biggest challenge."

Paying to keep electrical items on standby when they are not in use is unnecessary waste and accounts for 8pc of the average household's electricity bill. So much of modern technology – from the TV and DVD player to games consoles – is left permanently switched on, wasting an average of £37 a year.

BE BOILER AWARE

Heating and hot water account for around 60pc of the average fuel bill and unless your boiler is relatively new it is unlikely to be running as efficiently as it could.

Replacing an old gas-guzzling boiler that is 15 years old with a new highly-efficient condensing one along with some heating controls could save around £275 a year in a three-bedroom semi. A lower cost option is to install heating controls and room thermostats so that empty rooms are not heated and each room is temperature controlled.

BUY ENERGY EFFICIENT items

If you are replacing any electrical item from a lightbulb to a washing machine – or a games console or new TV for Christmas – check its energy efficiency. All products must carry a rating.

There are two logos to look out for: Energy Saving Recommended – this is on the most energy-efficient products. The EU energy label – this grades products from A (for the best) to G (for the worst) for energy use. For fridges and freezers there is a new A++ rating.

Also consider size. The bigger the appliance, the more electricity it is likely to need.

MONITOR IT

Buy a monitor to record energy usage – it is the easiest way to see how much each appliance costs to run. Turn off everything that is not essential and see instant savings.

KEEP THE HOME FIRE BURNING

Soaring energy bills have led to a resurgence in real fires – even in urban areas. Sales of wood-burning and multi-fuel stoves are up 40pc on last year, according to the Solid Fuel Association (www.solidfuel.co.uk).

Smokeless fuel will keep you in compliance with the rules in a smoke-control area and those worried about green issues should bear in mind that wood as a fuel is considered carbon neutral in that it is only releasing the CO2 captured by the growth of the tree. An efficient multi-fuel fire (half wood and half smokeless fuel) also produces less carbon dioxide than a gas condensing boiler.

Green fuels, such as the Green Dragon logs made as a bi-product of oil-seed rape, are proving increasingly popular. The briquettes burn three times as long as wood and give off twice the heat (greendragonfuel.co.uk).

Stoves are more efficient than open fires, which send most of the heat up the chimney. Before using a fireplace ensure the chimney is swept and is lined, if you are having an open fire. Wood-burning stoves, which can cost £1,000, must be fitted by a HETAS qualified fitter (hetas.co.uk).

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‘Green’ hotel aims to cut energy use by 80%

The 20-room Premier Inn Tamworth in Staffordshire aims to reduce energy use by 80% against a standard hotel through new approaches to heating, cooling, lighting and ventilation.

Features include:

*Ground-source heat pumps use the earth’s natural energy to cool and heat rooms and provide hot water.
*Toilets flushed with recycled water from showers and baths will save 20% of the hotel’s entire water usage and will provide 100% of the hotel’s toilet water usage
*Sustainable wool from British sheep used in the walls to create efficient thermal and acoustic insulation
*Low energy Light Emitting Diode (LED) lighting with motion sensors to ensure lights are only on when needed to give an energy saving of 80%.
*Solar panels will heat bath water

Staff will be trained to understand the technologies behind the design and to help with minimising everyday energy and water consumption, such as in washing, water usage, excessive heating or cooling.

Guests, who will pay from £53 a night, will be able to see the energy saved as part of a visual display in the hotel lobby, as well as learn about the technologies that have gone into the new building.

The property being seen as a flagship site for the company to trial the best green technologies available, to see which are viable for their hotels in future.
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