Almost a million more low-income families look set to benefit from the government’s flagship energy efficiency scheme, the Energy Company Obligation, under new plans outlined at the end of March as part of the Clean Growth Strategy.

The £6 billion energy efficiency scheme will refocus entirely on vulnerable and low-income households in order to slash bills for thousands more families until at least the year 2028. There are also plans to extend the Warm Home Discount to ensure that more than two million customers receive £140 off their energy bills come next winter.

At the moment, only 70 per cent of beneficiaries of this scheme come from low income families, but since it was launched back in 2013 over one in 16 households have benefited from more than 2.2 million improvements.

This part of the Clean Growth Strategy intends to bring 2.5 million fuel poor homes up to an Energy Performance Certificate rating of C come the year 2030, which will help people save energy and cut their bills.

The proposed changes will see energy-saving home improvements like modern efficient heating systems and insulation installed in 900,000 properties by March 2022. The government has also committed to maintaining funding for home energy efficiency until at least 2028.

Commenting on the news, Claire Perry- energy and clean growth minister – said: “We have made clear our commitment to eradicating fuel poverty and by making our flagship energy scheme 100 per cent focused on low-income families we are taking another step towards achieving this goal.

“As set out in our Clean Growth Strategy, we also want to continue to drive world-leading British innovation in green technologies for the benefit all consumers. That’s why we are increasing the opportunity for energy suppliers to get funding to develop new and innovative energy saving product and services, like the award-winning company Q-bot’s robotic insulation service.”

A separate consultation is also going to be held to review changes to the Warm Home Discount beyond next winter in order to enable all payments to be made automatically. It will also include extending eligibility to those who receive Universal Credit who do have jobs but earn under £16,190 that year.

If you’re looking to save money, reduce your carbon footprint and protect your family from the rising costs of energy, you might want to look into thermodynamic heating systems and how you could benefit.

These systems heat your water to 55 degrees C all year round and they work all day and night throughout the year. You could even save yourself up to 90 per cent off your hot water energy bill and the best bit is that they can be retrofitted to your existing hot water system and installed with a new hot water cylinder, only taking one day to install – so disruption time is kept to a minimum.

If you’d like to find out more, get in touch with us here at JEM Energy today.