Energy cafés help Londoners slash bills and learn about green solutions

Tips for reducing consumption

Maria Soria, a hospitality worker living in London s ’ west, sought advice from a community energy group to save money on her utility bills, after struggling to keep up with payments on her new home during the coronavirus pandemic.

For me it came as a surprise. I knew nothing about saving or managing my energy costs,” she said. Many times, “energy companies misled me into paying more money than I could afford.”

She received help to deal with the problems from social business Crew Energy, which was offering its services at a food bank in her old south London neighbourhood.

Founded by members of green group Friends of the Earth in 2014, Crew works with residents in three south London boroughs to find ways to reduce their household energy consumption, save money and boost green energy.

In line with Britain s binding ’ target to cut its planet-warming emissions to net-zero by 2050, Crew aims to help communities and individuals adopt lowcarbon technologies. Those include LED lighting and heat pumps that use electricity to heat homes more efficiently and with fewer emissions than gas or storage heaters. We have a “climate emergency, we need to reduce our energy usage,” said Alex Hartley, a voluntary director at Crew.

With government attention focused on tackling the Covid19 crisis, we haven t got time to “’ wait ”, she said, adding that fuel poverty and sustainable energy are social justice issues “Fuel poverty where — households have higher-thanaverage fuel costs that would push them below the poverty line if they spent that amount affected 2.4-million households, or one in 10, in England in 2018, according to the latest government data. Since 2018, Crew has delivered household energy advice workshops for community members, known as energy cafés ”, in public spaces such as libraries.

The free day-long sessions were held twice a week at several venues in south London, offering advice on how to equip homes to waste less energy and save on heating and electricity bills. But in 2020, some of the sessions have moved online due to the pandemic.

The group also helps poorer households search for and secure grants and loans from the government and UK Power Networks, which runs electricity cables and lines in parts of England.

The financing means homes can be retrofitted with energysaving technologies such as LED light bulbs, nano-insulation film and solar panels. Crew also helps people switch to greener power suppliers, where the offer is affordable for them.

Since the national lockdown, more Britons have expressed concern about falling behind on energy bills, according to a survey by government gas and electricity regulator Ofgem.

BETTER UNDERSTANDING

Between April and May this year, worries over energy bill affordability increased by 5% among those surveyed, prompting just more than one in five people to draw on emergency credit.

Katherin Garcia, an adviser and energy café manager, said while many people are now struggling to pay their bills due to the financial pressures brought on by the pandemic, few know what energy solutions are available to them. The energy café sessions “help give people a better understanding of how to change tariffs, cheaply retrofit their houses and save more money overall,” she said. At the same time, they re ’ reducing energy wastage and protecting the environment.” Richard Black, director of the Energy andClimate Intelligence Unit, a UK-based think-tank, said sectors that have taken the biggest economic hit from Covid-19, such as construction and manufacturing, are those with maximum potential for investing in energy efficiency. Most solutions to energy “consumption and climate change have a local component and are about the choices you make as an individual,” he said. Home heating, for example, will need a major transition in the next 20 years to reach net-zero carbon emissions, mainly by replacing gas boilers with insulation and heat pumps. That is something “individuals can take advantage of now,” he said. When people “make the transition to more energy-efficient home installations, they ll see more ’ benefits down the line.” Crew Energy plans to launch its first community energy share offer in October, allowing local residents to invest over a minimum two-year period and offering a financial return.

The money raised will fund upfront capital costs to install air-source heat pumps at the Devas Club, a community centre and youth club in south London. The pumps use electricity to extract heat from outside air and compress it to increase the air temperature for use indoors.

Crew said the pumps have the potential to cut carbon emissions by up to four times compared to regular boilers. They will reduce spending on the centre s heating bills, freeing

’ up funding for climate education and energy awareness work with youth. Said Hartley, It s projects “’ like this that help reach people who would otherwise be excluded from accessing support and assistance to have a cleaner, fairer energy deal.”