Turning up the heat

Millions of people shiver in their homes every winter because they cannot afford to turn on their heating when they need it but, in Oldham, a pioneering collaboration is looking to defrost the fuel poverty blues

More than four million households in the UK live in fuel poverty, according to the charity National Energy Action (NEA), but recent price rises by the big utility ompanies have fuelled concerns that the Government's targets for eliminating the problems have effectively been burned.

Tackling the problem has been a key priority for government for a decade. The UK Fuel Poverty Strategy 2001, for instance, set out specific targets and aims to eradicate fuel poverty among vulnerable groups - the elderly, families with young children, long-term sick and long term unemployed - by 2010 and completely by 2015.

The task of finding ways to reduce fuel poverty has fallen largely upon local authorities and it has proved to be a daunting burden for many, nowhere more so than in Oldham. The town is ranked the 43rd most deprived out of 354 local authorities in the country, with 70 per cent of its council tenants receiving state benefits of some kind.

If strategies to combat fuel poverty were going to fail anywhere, they were going to fail in Oldham and yet, despite a formidable set of challenges, Oldham has not only made real progress in delivering affordable warmth to thousands of council tenants, it has also emerged as something of a model for other areas battling to meet fuel poverty targets.

In 2002 Oldham MBC transferred responsibility for the management of its 14,000 properties to a newly-created body, First Choice Homes Oldham (FCHO). In addition to being responsible for letting, repairing and modernising the borough's properties, FCHO also had the job of delivering the council's affordable warmth strategy and devising actions to combat fuel poverty.

That action began with a programme to install full energy efficient central heating and hot water systems in all dwellings - a programme that is still ongoing - but much more needed to be done if First Choice Homes was to stand any hope of eradicating fuel poverty among vulnerable groups by 2010.

Key to making real progress was a need to replace the fixed charge tenants were paying for their communal heating and hot water with a system that enabled tenants to pay for the energy they actually used.

Hugh Broadbent, FCHO's chief executive, said: "The fixed charge was unfair from every angle. When gas prices started to rocket last year we knew that the old system of fixed charge and fixed tariff could no longer be sustained.

"We needed to devise a system that put tenants in control of their energy use and reflected the real cost of that energy. On the one hand we knew that we had to increase the tariff to meet the price we were paying for gas supplies and on the other we wanted to give tenants control over the amount of energy they used."

The decision was made by Oldham MBC's cabinet in November 2007 to install heat metering in all communally heated properties not already metered. The works were tendered and Switch 2 Energy Solutions was successful.

For FCHO's heating services manager, Martin Latham, moving away from a fixed charge system to an approach that handed over control to the consumer was something of a 'no-brainer' from the start.

"It was clear right away that Switch2's systems would result in reduced fuel costs for the vast majority of tenants but, critically, it would also introduce real fairness. For the first time, tenants would be in control and manage their fuel usage themselves," he said.

"There is no getting away from the fact that the old fixed charge system did nothing to encourage tenants to manage their consumption sensibly and there was no benefit for those tenants who did. Switch2's smart systems have changed all that and introduced real tenant incentives."

The result of that collaboration was an installation programme for the innovative metering technology. It was chosen for its versatility in a retrofit scenario along with its suitability for large-scale city-wide heating systems. This fixed network automatic meter reading system allows meters to be read remotely without any need to enter a property; at the push of just one button all the data is transferred at the same time.

Switch2 designed purpose built consumer control boards that housed the heat meter and the radio module. These are being installed along with new programmers, room thermostats and hot water thermostats into the 2,000 homes involved in the project, which is expected to finish ahead of schedule.

Upon completion of the installation project Switch2 will provide FCHO with data that will show how much energy each household has actually used and a statement showing a revised, accurate heating charge will be issued to each household. Additionally, due to the nature of the system installed, the consumers, along with FCHO, will be able to check their consumption on the website.

The data collected from meter reads so far show that the predicted saving of 30 per cent per property in terms of the fuel bills has proved, if anything, conservative. Some tenants say that their fuel bills have dropped by as much as 60 per cent.

Leslie Jagger, a single man, has seen his monthly fixed charge bill fall from £64 a month to an average of £24 a month. "The new system means that I pay only for what I use. I'm in control. All I have to do is use the simple control board (time control and thermostat). It's a fantastic improvement on the old fixed charge system."

For Jayne Clare, Switch2's managing director, Jagger's comments validate the role of modern metering and data management systems in reducing fuel poverty and increasing energy efficiency, not to mention carbon savings.

"The experience of tenants like Mr Jagger is a direct result of introducing systems that put people in control of their energy consumption," Clare said." Most see their fuel bills cut by an average of 30 per cent or more when compared with un-metered, fixed charge supplies and lifts them out of fuel poverty."

Clare makes no secret of the fact that she regards Switch2's involvement with a fuel poverty project in Oldham as almost something of a personal crusade. She added: "The Oldham project is much more than simply another business contract to me. Oldham is just a few miles from Switch2's offices.

"Fuel poverty is a very real problem for thousands of vulnerable, local people and I am proud to be working with Hugh Broadbent and his team to eradicate it once and for all."

Shivering statistics

There are roughly four million UK households living in fuel poverty

• Fuel poverty affects mainly poor and vulnerable groups: the elderly; people with

disabilities; single parent families and the chronically sick.

• A drop in body temperature can cause the blood to thicken making circulation more difficult and contributing to heart disease and strokes.

• Temperatures below 16OC (61OF) can lower the body's resistance to respiratory infections.

• Arthritis symptoms, particularly pain, are worse for sufferers who live in cold, damp homes.

• Cold affects cerebral function and manual dexterity increasing the likelihood of falls and accidents in the home.

• Temperatures lower than 12OC (54OF) cause blood pressure to rise in the elderly, increasing the risk of heart attack.

• Winter deaths in the UK increase by more than 20 per cent over the rest of the year,

resulting in an average 30,000 excess deaths; that's around 250 deaths per day during the winter months.

• The UK has one of the worst excess winter death rates in Europe. UK rates are nearly twice those of Germany and the Netherlands.

• It is estimated that for every 1OC that the winter temperature drops below the average, there will be an associated increase of 8,000 excess winter deaths.

• In addition to residents' suffering, cold, damp housing is estimated to costs the NHS £1 billion a year.