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Poor Will Need Help with Energy Bills
Wednesday December 10th 2014
According to the BBC, ‘poor families in the UK will need more help to pay for heating their homes as energy bills rise, government advisors have warned.’
A report by the Committee on Climate Change (CCC) claims that, by 2030, subsidies for clean energy will add an extra 36p per day onto household bills.
The report also stated that many poor households will need more support with insulation and clean heating, and energy-intensive industries will need continued help too.
A government spokesman said that investing in energy efficiency is the best way to reduce long term bills, also claiming that bills are an estimated £90 lower this year than they would otherwise have been thanks to government policies.
However the CCC said that the chancellor, George Osborne, had cut total investment in energy efficiency from £1.4bn to £800m.
A spokesman for the fuel poverty campaign The Energy Bill Revolution, Ed Matthew, told BBC News:
“The situation is crazy. Insulation offers by far better value for money than road-building, yet we have just seen £100bn announced for infrastructure without a penny for insulation.
“We can’t load the whole cost of insulation on to bills – many people just can’t afford it.”
The CCC’s report said household bills have increased by 75% from 2004 to 2013, compared with general inflation of 23%.
The committee maintained the principal factor was the price of gas, and found that policies to support cleaner electricity added £45 to an average £1,140 bill in 2013.
The CCC also said that by 2030 it expects most electricity to come from low-carbon sources; energy prices and bills should then fall as support payments start to expire and new technologies get cheaper.
A government spokesman responded to the report, saying: “Our policies are designed to keep the lights on, reduce polluting emissions and cut energy use at the lowest possible cost to gas and electricity customers.
“That’s why we have installed energy efficiency measures through schemes like ECO and Green Deal to over 819,000 homes and a further 600,000 homes are set to benefit by 2017.”
Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-30404364