Grants of up to £20,000 are available to support not-for-profit organisations seeking to help people struggling to pay for heating bills and suffering from a cold home.
This year, the Energy Affordability Fund – funded by Western Power Distribution (WPD) and administered by the Centre for Sustainable Energy (CSE) – will help fund the costs of innovative affordable warmth initiatives running between November 2022 and April 2023. With soaring energy bills, inflation and the cost of living crisis, this winter will see many more people unable to afford to heat their homes. This money will help to improve local services and offer the necessary help.
Megan Blyth is managing the project for CSE. “In the last round of the funding, we saw lots of great innovative approaches to providing affordable warmth and PSR services which continue to adapt to Covid-19 and that target those who are at risk of not accessing services due to digital exclusion. This round, WPD want to support organisations to respond to the cost-of-living crisis and escalating fuel prices by delivering in-depth advice engaging with new themes for help and intervention while ensuring that they are reaching communities which are often excluded and not easily able to access energy advice services.
“We’d also like to see projects that provide support and advice to increase resilience of vulnerable customers to severe winter weather and support customers to take up and benefit from low carbon technologies in the energy transition.
“If you have an ongoing affordable-warmth project or an idea for a new one and aren’t sure if it will qualify, please get in touch to talk it through.”
Who’s eligible?
As before, applicants need to be based in the WPD network area – broadly South Wales, the Midlands and the Southwest (see application form below for details).
One of the groups they funded last year was Exeter Community Energy, seen in the picture above with local MP Ben Bradshaw who attended one of the group’s drop-in energy advice clinics.
The Energy Affordability Fund will support activities that meet one or more of the following objectives:
- Provide in-depth advice and support to enable people in vulnerable circumstances to carry out home improvements to make their homes more energy efficient.
- Help vulnerable households to lower and manage their bills.
- Provide support and advice to increase resilience of vulnerable households to severe winter weather and provide advice on what to do in a power cut.
- Target home energy advice and support to households that are in areas of higher deprivation, at greater risk and not connected to the gas network, potentially using WPD’s vulnerability app.
- Identify and support vulnerable or low-income households in rural and urban areas who have difficulty accessing support.
- Identify new registrants for the PSR and offer support to those already registered.
- Work with healthcare providers, other support organisations and community partners, to raise awareness of the links between cold, damp homes and poor physical and mental health.
