Delivering a low carbon economy in a low energy price future...

Whilst putting an end to the cost and suffering of cold homes

14th July 2015

Background and our ‘projections’ of the future

Independent experts have highlighted living in a cold home is currently a bigger killer across the UK than road accidents, alcohol or drug abuse combined

Over the term of the last UK Parliament alone NEA estimates there were over 41,000 needless deaths across the UK directly attributable to vulnerable households inhabiting cold homes.

Without adequate national and UK responses, between 2015-2030, NEA estimates that over 125,000 vulnerable people across the UK may die needlessly.

National health services will need to spend billions treating cold-related morbidity, in excess of £22bn in England and Wales alone over the same 15 year period.

Over the term of this UK Parliament domestic energy consumers will also contribute over £14 billion to the Treasury through VAT and revenue generated from carbon taxes.

Update on fuel poverty across UK and England

Number of FP households across UK has risen slightly to 4.5m

Number of households in fuel poverty in England was estimated to be 2.35 million, a slight decrease than 2012

Represents 10.4% of all English householdsAggregate fuel poverty gap reduced by 4% to

£877 millionThis means fuel poor households have to

spend near £1 billion pounds more than non-fuel poor households

Why energy performance bands matter most to fuel poor households

Closing the funding gap is our key challengeAll policies to support FP will expire by 2017 without extensionDECC have said they believe the following cost effective

interventions are possible: 541,000 FP households that could benefit from cavity wall insulation, 967,000 from loft insulation (<150mm), 1,180,000 from solid wall insulation 145,000 from new central heating systems.

The CCC estimates that an investment of £1.2bn to 1.8bn pa would be needed improve the homes of those currently in fuel poverty in England up to EPC Band C by 2030.

Current resources are less than half of what is required to meet this target.

An independent consultant Verco has also estimated it would cost £2.6bn pa to improve the homes of all 4.7m low income households to Band C by 2025.

Improving the homes of all low income households, rather than ‘LIHC fuel poor’, households is required as it helps overcome the difficulty of ‘churn’ arising from the relative Low Income High Cost (LIHC) definition and make the delivery and targeting of programmes much more straightforward.

The difference we could make – national benefitsAdequate investment in energy efficiency in the domestic

sector will result in a 26% reduction in imports of natural gas in 2030, worth £2.7bn in that year

£8.61 billion per annum in total energy bill savings across housing stock, after comfort take

Return £3.20 through increased GDP per £1 invested by government

Increase relative GDP by 0.6% by 2030, increasing annual GDP in that year by £13.9bn

Increased employment by up to 108,000 net jobs per annum over the period 2020-2030, mostly in the service and construction sectors. These jobs would be spread across every region and constituency of the UK.

23.6MtCO2 reductions per annum by 2030, after accounting for rebound effects