Energy News

Fuel poverty hits Welsh hardest

Friday 02 December, 2011

By Martin Fagan

Wales suffers the highest level of fuel poverty and also highest UK energy prices, says new research.

The number of people in fuel poverty differs wildly depending on where in the UK you live, according to new research.

Stark differences in fuel poverty levels across the UK mean a third of households in Wales suffer from fuel poverty (32%), while London was found to have the lowest level of fuel poverty in the UK, with just 16% of households affected.

Households are defined as fuel poor if they need to spend more than 10% of their after-tax income on fuel to heat a home to an adequate standard of warmth.

As well as being the fuel poverty capital of the UK, Wales is also the victim of a postcode lottery on energy prices that sees local households paying more for their energy than most other parts of the UK, according to the research conducted by independent switching service, uSwitch.com.

In Cardiff, the average household energy bill is £1,312 a year, compared with £1,280 in Edinburgh and Glasgow. uSwitch.com says the average household energy bill across the UK is £1,293 a year. uSwitch.com also says its research doesn't take into account the most recent round of energy price hikes, which added £161 or 14% onto household energy bills and pushed an estimated 569,000 more households into fuel poverty.

In total, household energy bills have risen by £633 or 96% in just over five years and an estimated 6.9 million - or 27% of all UK households - are now fuel poor, says uSwitch.com.

“Rocketing energy prices mean that no area of the UK is safe from the clutches of fuel poverty,” said Ann Robinson, director of consumer policy at uSwitch.com.

“The fuel poor can be found in all types of households and in all parts of the country, but some regions and households are clearly more vulnerable than others. Households have to start protecting themselves and there are two key steps to this: pay the lowest possible price for your energy and learn to use less of it.”

Figures from the Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC) suggest 63% of households in fuel poverty are living in owner occupied accommodation while just 19% are in local authority or registered social landlord housing.

Because of higher modern social housing standards, uSwitch.com says the latter are more likely to have benefited from energy efficiency measures, reducing the amount of energy used and therefore the cost.