Funded Energy Redress Projects

The project will continue to build on successful delivery of a previous project, providing vulnerable residents with tailored in-depth energy advice. The project aims to help residents reduce energy usage and cost through long-term practical and behavioural changes, with follow-up support as needed.

They will expand access channels to advice in various locations. Continue in-person advice through drop-ins, pop-ups, and individual sessions based on built experience from the last two years. Deliver group talks and workshops in the community, and provide referrals to their specialist advice teams and other relevant services. 

The project will work with health practitioners, local authorities, and other partners to provide advice and support to vulnerable residents in Merseyside, aimed at reducing the detriment they face trying to keep affordably warm at home. Building on and aligning previous Energy Redress funded projects and recent NHS Cheshire and Merseyside Fuel Poverty Pilots, their qualified, specialist Energy Advisors will provide personalised in-depth advice to residents referred directly from clinical teams and their broader community network and referral partner organisations.

The project aims to provide detailed, high-quality telephone and face to face energy advice as well as delivering in-home energy advice sessions, highlighting practical ways to reduce energy demand and costs, including better use of existing heating controls, alternative tariffs, and behavioural changes to energy use. They will also support with referrals to other schemes supporting access to Energy Company Obligation and home updgrade grants.

This project is building on the successful delivery of a previous Energy Redress funded project. The project will continue to help householders lower bills, reduce energy use, provide small energy saving items, challenge incorrect billing and access grants and schemes to help with arrears and property improvements.  They will also refer people to specialist colleagues within their organisation to tackle additional benefits, housing and debt issues, helping in an holistic way to address the ongoing cost of living crisis.

Energy Advisors will support their Perthshire Energy Support Network to reach the elderly, families, single parents and those living rurally. They will also inform and educate local partners, ensuring they are aware of the help the project can provide and how people can access their support. 

The project aims to address energy-related challenges faced by Somali and other BAME families in West London. This project will provide tailored, culturally relevant energy advice to help these communities reduce energy consumption and lower their energy bills. By engaging 150 households, they aim to deliver comprehensive advice sessions on energy efficiency, grants, and sustainable practices. The project includes outreach sessions in community centres and mosques, distributing bilingual educational materials, and providing one-to-one advice through an advice line and drop-in centre. Home energy audits will identify areas for improvement, and they will assist households in applying for grants and subsidies for energy-efficient upgrades. 

The project refines a business model design for virtual microgrids, allowing a community energy group to sell electricity at lower prices to local consumers. To achieve this a community would need to be able to access the Balancing and Settlement system, via a Balancing Responsible Party; to design and correctly size generation and storage assets; and to operate control systems. The project will manage these aspects on behalf of the community, alongside ongoing support with the paperwork and administration of implementing and managing this solution. 

This will allow the community to set their own rates for purchasing excess energy spilled to the grid from local renewable energy assets, and selling energy back to local consumers. The project aims to provide local consumers with lower rates for their energy, whilst still generating profit for community benefit (e.g. through a local funding pot).

Sustainable Seacombe will support vulnerable residents in an area of highest fuel poverty, and low average income, to better afford their fuel bills and maintain adequate warmth in their home.

It is a twenty month highly focussed programme of activity that will overcome barriers faced by vulnerable residents and directly link them to the full range of support available.

A key element is to visit every home in Seacombe to inform residents of the opportunities available to them to access financial support for improvement measures, register for support such as Warm Home Discount, better understand how to switch supplier and the benefits of smart meters, as well as access support when facing fuel debt or other broader issues.

Working with our partner, Wirral Council, we will use a wide range of communication and engagement methods including home visits, weekly community events, social media, print and radio media, joining forces with other community groups’ activities, and word of mouth by residents.

We are taking an innovative approach of creating 52 “micro-areas” of 150 homes each receiving co-ordinated support. Residents will be encouraged to share their knowledge and experience with neighbours, creating the potential legacy of localised community support linked with other programmes such as Seacombe Lives. This will be supported by offering accredited training to residents.

Sustainable Seacombe is projected to support over 5,000 vulnerable residents and lead to reductions in fuel bills of over £50,000 per year. It will also see the installation of over 1,000 energy efficiency measures.