Energy News

Energy Efficiency targets exceeded

Tuesday 19 August, 2008

By becca.talbot@consumerchoices.co.uk

The UK’s eight biggest energy suppliers have exceeded their Energy Efficiency Commitment 2005-2008 (EEC2) targets, thanks to massive home insulation strategies.

A review by energy regulator Ofgem showed the EEC2 had resulted in the installation of more than 2 million boilers, 2.2 million heating controls, 2,900 ‘innovative heating’ schemes and 200,000 other heating measures, while also helping 70,000 households switch fuel.

The energy regulator confirmed that the eight obligated suppliers smashed their targets to cut household energy consumption by 130TWh over the last three years up until March 31, 2008.

The Energy Efficiency Commitment 2005-2008 (EEC2) was the Government’s main strategy for improving home energy efficiency, which has since been replaced by the CERT. It required certain gas and electricity suppliers to meet an energy saving target between 1 April 2005 and 31 March 2008. This was the second phase of the Energy Efficiency Commitment; that first ran from 2002-2005.

In a review of the Energy Efficiency Commitment achievements, Ofgem said the dominant approach to saving energy was through providing cavity wall or loft insulation directly to homeowners.

Despite meeting the EEC2 set targets though, only British Gas beat its own target on securing energy savings through improvements to heating systems.

According to the EEC Annual Report 2008, the other companies struggled to meet their own energy saving goals for heating, and most of their efforts were focussed on insulation improvements. British Gas bucked the trend as a result of developing links with boiler manufacturers, although this was largely concentrated in non-priority groups, the report said.

The report said: “Energy savings from heating measures account for 15 per cent of British Gas’ activity to target. This is by far the largest share of the achieved energy savings from heating measures for any of the suppliers and is a result of a successful partnership with boiler manufacturers.”

It continued: “A large share of energy savings from heating was also delivered through British Gas’ central heating programme and through work with social housing providers. Uptake of A-rated boilers through the manufacturer partnerships resulted in a threefold increase in the achieved energy savings from heating in the third year, in comparison with the activity in the first year of the obligation.”

Overall the suppliers achieved savings of 187 TWh (terawatt/hours) compared to a target of 130 TWh with nearly 60 per cent of this saving coming from insulation.

Chris Eagle of EnergyChoices.co.uk says: “If energy suppliers can carry on in this way, helping consumers save money through energy efficiency schemes, household fuel bills may not be nearly as high as anticipated.”

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