We’ve got the power

All too often, environmental action has been seen as the preserve only of those who can afford it. The current energy price crisis brings saving energy (and carbon emissions) and saving money together. There’s also a public health aspect to energy use: the World Health Organisation recommends an indoor temperature for healthy adults of 18 degrees in the UK: less than that and there are many negative health implications. We need to stay warm to stay healthy, but we have to be able to afford this, both from our own pockets and the planet’s ‘carbon budget’ too.

The press and internet are full of energy saving ‘tips’, some easy, some harder. I’m not aiming to give you an exhaustive list – reducing carbon emissions is one aspect, but another is making sure you don’t spend more than you need to on energy bills. So what follows is Energy 101 – quick and easy ways to get the best out of your energy supply.

First though, did you know that there is a Priority Services Register, and being on it means you get extra help from your energy suppliers and distribution networks? The extra help includes advance warning of power cuts, priority help in an emergency, accessible format information and other support, as well as priority support when you call your supplier. The Register is available to a very wide group – anyone with a child under 5 living with them, or of pensionable age, or disabled or chronically sick or with a long term medical condition (and these are only some of the qualifications). You can register by calling your supplier: for more information on what support you might get and what the eligibility criteria are, check here.

Bills

I realise that I’m at risk of trying to teach my grandmother to suck eggs here, but according to energy advisers much more experienced than I am, the ways of energy bills are not all clear to all users. If you are the sort of person who cross checks their bills to a spreadsheet of daily readings, or if, like me, you share your house with such a person, feel free to miss this section out!

If there’s a letter ‘e’ next to a reading, it is an estimate made by your supplier, and you may not be being charged correctly for the energy you have used. If your estimated usage is higher than real, you’ll be paying too much; if too low, you’ll be paying too little now and be exposed to large unexpected bills in the future (at future prices too!)

Many homes without gas are on a tariff where you are charged different amounts for day and night use: Economy 7. Daytime energy is charged at a higher unit rate than the standard tariff, but night time energy is cheaper than standard. This tariff is often used if your heating is via storage heaters, which are charged overnight. As a rule of thumb, unless your night-time (low rate) energy use is at least 40% of your total use, you may be better off asking your supplier to go onto the standard tariff: your discount for night time use may be outweighed by the higher rate you are paying in the daytime. You can check this yourself, or ask your supplier to tell you what your annual bill would have been under a single tariff, and compare this to what you’ve been paying.

Many of us pay for energy monthly by direct debit. It’s worth remembering that this is a method of payment, NOT the cost of your energy. It’s also worth querying the amount of the DD if it seems high – suppliers seem very open to challenge. Beware of making it too low though, as you’ll have to repay any underpayment eventually.

Switching used to be the easy way to save money on energy supplies. That’s not true at the moment – it seems almost impossible to switch supplier, though you may be able to switch to a cheaper tariff with your existing supplier.

Five quick and easy and cheap fixes

·       Lag your hot water tank, if you have one. Even if there’s already a pre-formed insulation jacket around it, check the amount of insulation it’s giving: you’re looking to have 75-80mm of insulation. Lagging pipes coming out of the tank will also help. Supplies for these are easy and relatively cheap to buy: just measure and search.

·       Turn your thermostat down by 1 degree. This obviously depends on your starting point! 18 degrees is the optimal room temperature for healthy adults; if you’re less mobile or elderly, you may need slightly higher temperatures, up to 21 degrees. Cold thickens blood and increases blood pressure, and breathing in cold air can increase the risk of chest infections. So it’s important to ensure the rooms you use are at the right temperature, and not too cold.

·       If you shower, reduce the length of your shower to 4 minutes – set an alarm outside the bathroom door to remind you (and others)!

·       There’s been a lot of publicity about turning the ‘flow’ temperature of a central heating boiler down. This can be very effective in reducing your energy use, but needs to be done properly, differently for conventional and combi boilers, and the central heating controls need to be set correctly first. The Energy Saving Trust has a really useful page of explanations and instructions.

·       Around 15% of heat loss in a house is through draughts and gaps, so sealing these up is important, and again fairly cheap and easy. Think about brushes on doors (and letterboxes), draught-proofing strips around windows, thermal seal film over single-glazed windows. Check that any loft hatch is insulated, and that unused chimneys are made draughtproof by a chimney balloon or chimney sheep (not a typo). Window heat loss can be reduced by drawing curtains at dusk, the thicker the better. You might pin old sheets or blankets to the window side to improve their warmth – a cheap and temporary but effective fix.

If you want more tips, the Energy Saving Trust website is very reliable.

What about oil?

Living in rural villages, many ERA members may use oil for heating. There’s a lot less regulation for oil supply, but here are a couple of useful things to think about.

How about setting up or joining an Oil Buying Group for your village? Such a group can negotiate a better price for multiple customers and reduce the number of tankers travelling through a village too (so saves emissions of all sorts from lorries).

There’s an oil equivalent of the Priority Service Register, though only for customers over 75. It’s called the Cold Weather Priority Initiative and you can find out about it here. The idea is to prioritise deliveries during periods of extreme cold weather or shortages.

If your home has a poor EPC, you may be eligible for a grant to upgrade your heating and insulation. Known as HUG (Home Upgrade Grant), you can find out more about it here.

What next?

So you’ve checked your bill, done your quick fixes, and maybe you’re thinking about some of the bigger moves you can make to make your home more energy efficient and your household heating more sustainable for the future.  There is one more important thing you can do for free: Use your voice!

Tell your MP/ PC/ county council how important you think it is that our homes are well insulated and fitted with low carbon heating methods, both for our human health and the health of the planet. The more support politicians see for making our homes energy-sustainable, the less they have to fear by standing up on our behalf, as they should do, to help get our homes better insulated to reduce our domestic energy demand, and to help us afford the new technologies that help us move away from fossil fuel. They, and we, need to use our power wisely.