A household is defined as being in fuel poverty if it needs to spend more than 10% of income on its energy bills. Fuel poverty exists through a combination of poor levels of energy efficiency, high energy prices and inadequate income. It is a big issue and something which currently affects more than four million people in the UK.

Things which can do to help include making customers aware of support, making their house more energy efficient, getting them onto the right tariffs for them and helping them to better understand and manage their energy usage.

The energy industry is working with Ofgem to offer the support needed, and additional voluntary support for vulnerable customers is being implemented totalling £225 million in April this year.

Fuel poverty is an issue we take very seriously- latest Ofgem reports show we’re one of the UK’s top two suppliers in terms of social spend.

At E.ON we’re working hard with vulnerable groups, NGOs and community groups to better understand fuel poverty in the UK and find ways to help more customers to manage their energy and offer them all of the support they need.

We launched Challenge 100 in 2010 to help us better understand the issues at the heart of fuel poverty. This involved us working with 100 families for 100 days to see what measures would be needed to take them out of fuel poverty. We worked closely with a range of partners to deliver the support and advice that our families needed to help them heat, light and power their homes as effectively and affordably as possible.

Our case study approach allowed us to gather real practical insights into the experiences of families in fuel poverty.

Challenge 100 facts:

· We’ve eradicated fuel poverty for 42 families.

· We helped families in Birmingham, Manchester, Luton, County Durham and South Staffordshire.

· We’ve actually helped 102 families in 100 days.

· We installed external wall insulation in 78 homes.

· We installed or topped up loft insulation in 39 homes.

· We worked with universities, councils, charities and government bodies.

· We struggled to help those families who needed more than energy efficiency measures and advice to take them out of fuel poverty.

· Some people didn’t want to talk to us about their finances, or were happy with their current energy tariff/payment method.

· Sometimes the right energy efficiency measures weren’t available under the Government’s frameworks

We have a long-standing relationship with Age UK, delivering community energy projects to older people and have also focused our employee volunteering activity on working with local charities and groups that support vulnerable people.

We support our vulnerable customers through our different social propositions. For instance, our StayWarm social programme supported around 25,000 of our vulnerable customers last years through a subsidised fixed price.
We also have our CaringEnergy programme providing a ‘one stop shop’ for our vulnerable customers, including benefit entitlement checks and energy efficiency advices and this year; we’ve given advice to over 21,000 people

Read what people are saying about fuel poverty.