Funded Energy Redress Projects

This is an ambitious infrastructure project to deliver an innovative 5G ambient temperature heat network to decarbonise over 2,000 homes, two schools, and many local small businesses in the South West Hertfordshire village of Kings Langley. It will stand as an example and blueprint for other low temperature heat networks across the country to speed up their implementation and normalise this as a form of renewable heating. 

The project will build on the completed Stage 2 CEF Study, contracted by Hydrock (now Stantec) and Vital Energi. The report delivered a technical and economic feasibility study using the prolific chalk aquifer as a heat source for an ambient temperature heat network and confirmed the viability of the project. 

The project will support the ambient temperature heat network to move through permissions, procurements, securing a site, and financial close, including infrastructure deployment, borehole drilling, and financial model to investment, soft market launch and community engagement. 

Implemented at scale, the ambient temperature heat network aims to eliminate the need for gas heating in the most cost effective manner, reducing bills for residents and local major users, reducing carbon emissions, enhancing energy security, and providing affordable heating to the community.

The project aims to establish in-person energy efficiency advice services for self-funding homeowners across Nottinghamshire and address the barriers to retrofit of hard-to treat properties. 

The advice service will provide support for consumers for each stage of their retrofit journey, from an initial enquiry about how to improve the energy efficiency of their homes through to the point where installation of retrofit measures takes place. Alongside helping consumers to find grant funding and subsidies where available. 

The project will deliver in-person tools to enhance consumer knowledge and confidence, including retrofit surveys, workshops and events, to help homeowners transition to net zero.

Retrofit surveys will include the following range of tailored personalised reports:

• Future Fit Home Energy Plan
• Clean Heat and Power Plan
• Thermal imaging report (e.g, to check the effectiveness of older cavity wall installations) 

The project will focus on off-gas grid homes, properties in a conservation area, and homes with an EPC rating of D-G. Engagement will be with householders that can afford to invest, incentivising and enabling a greater volume of people to contribute to net zero.

They will provide expert energy advice and support to assist vulnerable consumers in making informed decisions and improving their energy situations. The project targets consumers in Swindon, living in areas of higher fuel poverty and/or within the 20% most deprived areas in the UK. 

With a focus on prevention, they will deliver an energy education programme aimed at schools and young people leaving care, to provide them with skills for independent living and fostering good habits in energy saving and budgeting. 

They will collaborate with Swindon Tenants Academy to offer energy advice appointments at the beginning of all new housing tenancies. Delivery will include in-depth Energy Advice appointments, conducted face-to-face, via telephone, or through home visits. 

The Energy Mentor will carry out home energy assessments to identify challenges, current energy-saving measures, and financial circumstances to provide tailored advice. Support will also include liaising with energy suppliers and providing access to energy debt advice. 

Energy Mentors will deliver community presentations and 'pop-up' events targeting consumers and frontline workers. Offering training sessions to voluntary and public sector partners, focusing on energy issues for clients affected by fuel poverty, new housing tenants, and care leavers. 

They will also run social media campaigns to raise awareness and encourage early intervention.

Through these initiatives, the project aims to promote sustainable energy practices, alleviate fuel poverty, and empower individuals with the knowledge and skills to manage their energy use effectively.

The project will build on the successful delivery of a previously funded project; they are currently on target to reach over 1,000 households to date and have worked alongside other Caritas services to reduce the effects of fuel poverty. 

The project will continue to provide energy advice to people who are speakers of other languages, the deaf community, people with mobility and disabilities, and refugees. Advice will be provided through interpreted workshops, calls and information sessions.

The project also aims to educate those moving from institutions or accommodations (such as hospital, prison or care) and people from other countries, about energy use, bills and supply in the UK, to pre-empt energy issues they may face.

The project aims to address the need for support from Fife households that are struggling to heat their homes affordably. The project will focus on those who are most vulnerable to the impacts of fuel poverty, especially people for whom English is not their first language, those with low literacy and numeracy skills, and those who are digitally excluded. 

Utilising learning gained from previous projects, they have developed a community engagement approach that ensures effective reach and maximises participant benefit. They will work closely with local groups, organisations and support agencies, train new referral partners, recruit a team of local energy champion volunteers to act as trusted local connectors for the service, and work in targeted neighbourhoods to deliver support where it is most needed. 

They will also develop marketing materials and online resources to engage with 10,000 people, raising awareness of energy issues and how they can help. 

The project will work in-depth with 700 vulnerable households, providing advice on energy efficiency, financial support and supplier switching, plus referrals to other sources of well-being support, from income maximisation to befriending services. A ‘handy’ service, fitting warm curtains, draught-proofing and other simple energy-saving measures, will increase the energy efficiency of households, and those at risk of under-heating will receive ‘cosy’ packs to increase their immediate thermal comfort.

The project will provide learning disabled adults with accessible education and training to empower them to make informed choices, reduce their energy usage and assist them with difficulties around energy providers.

Through workshops and one-to-one support, participants will gain practical skills to reduce energy costs and improve financial resilience. 

Energy Champions will design and lead workshops covering energy use and energy saving measures, understanding your bill, and how to change energy provider. Individual adviser support will enable people to: 

• understand their own billing and energy packages
• change provider if needed
• apply workshop learning to their home environment
• identify energy saving measures to take and provide support to learn to put these things into practice 

Energy Champions will be learning disabled people who complete training, design accessible workshops, offer peer support, and run workshops delivering information to their peers.

They specialise in enhanced, guided, Heatview® thermal imaging surveys, which reveal thermal inefficiencies in the building fabric. These innovative surveys make energy efficiency more accessible for residents, giving them the confidence to make targeted improvements, from immediate, low-cost DIY, through to informed, deep retrofit projects.

The project aims to expand the capacity of CHEESE to increase public (particularly renters and those in fuel poverty) knowledge and uptake of retrofit, especially shallow retrofit, which can improve residential heating loss by up to 30%, and is both an accessible starting point and a complement to other retrofit measures.

These aims would be achieved by: 

• delivering thermal imaging surveys to renters, and vulnerable residents
• expanding The CHEESE Project’s service offering and season, with air tightness testing, and offering follow-up testing after retrofit works, to check work quality and for measurable improvements.
• community workshops to share common causes of heat-loss and methods for tackling them
• providing low-cost ‘draught-proofing’ materials to enable people in fuel poverty to take immediate DIY measures
• training new surveyors to meet capacity (a green, skilled job)
• attending community and industry events to educate and inform
• signposting and referring customers to appropriate schemes and organisations
• digital marketing campaigns to educate on draughtproofing, shallow retrofit and energy efficiency

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.