Northern city praised for its efforts to combat fuel poverty

A Leeds City Council partnership (LCC) has been awarded for creating an energy efficiency scheme, allowing for people to heat their homes without breaking the bank.  

At the beginning of this week it was announced that LCC had won the best initiative to tackle the fuel poverty crisis category at the 2023 ASCP Awards with its decarbonisation project for which it partnered with water and energy efficiency company Cenergist.

The initiative, known as ‘Clustering for Warmth’, was created to help deliver low carbon heating and hot water upgrades to more than 170,000 council-owned homes between 2021-2024. In addition, the programme involves replacing inefficient electric storage heating with ground source heat pumps, air source heat pumps and district heating solutions – on average, these provide residents annual utility bill savings of £360.

On the topic of helping people to save money on their bills, since 2020 the project has saved social housing and low-income residents an average of 52% on their utility bills. It has also delivered the equivalent carbon savings of 400 fewer cars or providing the energy for 235 homes.

The project has been welcomed, especially if it helps people keep more money in their wallets – research uncovered by heatable in June found the fuel poverty crisis was majorly affecting the North West by 12.1% as well as Scotland by 25%.

‘We are very happy to be part of this award winning partnership with LCC,’ said Dan Ludgate, group business development director at Cenergist said. ‘The Clustering for Warmth’ initiative is a brilliant, sustainable project and one we were proud to be a part of during these challenging times.’

Dan added: ‘While it is great to win this award, what really matters is that thanks to our solution, residents in hundreds of homes are now benefitting from a reduced carbon footprint and smaller utility bills.’

The Clustering for Warmth project forms part of LCC’s wider £100m investment to improve energy efficiency of its council stock by 2025 and is one of the country’s largest green home and energy bill reduction schemes. 

Image: Cenergist

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