Stay Informed With HeatingSave | Page 14

A minister has urged hard-hit energy customers to “vote with your feet” in the event of high fuel bills. The Bank of England has warned it expects household energy bills to rise by 15 per cent this year. “Consumers don’t have to take price increases lying down. If an energy company hits you with a price increase, you can hit them back where it hurts – by shopping around and voting with your feet,” Energy Secretary Chris Huhne told the Observer newspaper.

There is never a better time to be conscious about energy efficiency now that oil prices are returning to record levels after a temporary blip during the past week. So here are a few energy-saving tips that consumers cannot ignore, oil and other fuel bills are at unprecedented highs. Making your oil-fired boiler more efficient through better controls is a starting point.

A new government report says more than one in 10 new homes in Britain do not meet legal requirements for energy efficiency, so it’s no wonder tens of thousands of householders have higher energy bills. Record fuel prices are only adding to this tale of financial woe. The government has identified improving households” energy efficiency as the best way to reduce carbon emissions at the same time as keeping a lid on rising utility bills.

Voters are interested in how each party”s policies could affect the money in their pockets. Plenty has been pledged in the parties’ manifestos on pensions, property and children before the general election day on Thursday, May 6. Apart from a brief mention of winter fuel, little attention seems to have been paid to reducing fuel prices. HeatingSave tops the polls with a quick and money-saving solution.

An academic said a worldwide deal on climate change will be several years away. Since last December 130 countries have associated with the Copenhagen accord and over 80 have put in their emissions reductions commitments.

A director of a charity has said government plans to shake up Britain’s power supply market are “regressive”. Norman Kerr of Energy Action Scotland: “It is a regressive step as payments to cover the costs will take the form of blanket levies on customers’ bills and will not be based on either ability to pay or level of usage.” He favours general taxation as a way of paying for energy reforms.

To support the construction industry, energy secretary Chris Huhne said that government policy will stop any ‘cowboy’ installers taking on jobs under the Green Deal, with registered tradespeople being given a quality mark to put customers’ minds at rest. The Energy Bill was introduced to Parliament last year and includes provision for a new Green Deal which the Government believes will revolutionise the energy efficiency of British properties.

Leading nations appear as if they are having second thoughts on tackling global warming a mere six months after the Copenhagen summit. The Australian government has had to delay the introduction of its carbon emissions-trading scheme. The Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS) was supposed to be the guiding force behind reducing Australian emissions by 5-25% within the next ten years. But Senate opposition has forced Kevin Rudd’s administration to back down.

A committee of MPs has just warned that the government is on course to fail to meet its own targets on reducing fuel poverty. The official definition of fuel poverty is “spending more than 10 per cent of household income on energy bills”. As the period between last December and March brought the coldest winter for a generation and fuel bills continue to rise, the committee’s findings do not really come as a surprise.

The Guardian newspaper is running a Lighter Later campaign to have the clocks permanently changed, adding that continuing to move the clocks forward in summer, so they become one hour ahead of British Summer Time and two hours ahead of GMT, could also deliver carbon savings. Research the paper has commissioned has been presented at an event at Parliament.

Consumer watchdog, Consumer Focus, said it was worried that fuel prices would rise further in the wake of British Gas seeing its profits rise 98 per cent in the first half of this year. Audrey Gallacher, head of energy policy at the organisation, said: “We are concerned that energy firms may actually raise prices this winter.

E.ON is the fourth energy company to announce a hike to its gas and electricity prices in the UK. Its electricity prices will rise by 11.4 per cent and gas costs will be up 18.1% from next month. E.ON has around five million customers but said almost 600,000 were unaffected by the rise, including its most vulnerable customers on WarmAssist tariffs. It has also guaranteed no more price increases for Age UK customers for at least a year.