Fuel poverty schemes targeted with IMD

The Fuel Poor Network Extension Scheme was a government scheme run by OFGEM aimed at reducing fuel poverty – it provided funding towards the cost of connecting gas and installing gas heating and appliances for those with no gas supply in their home. Putting these people on the national grid should in theory reduce energy costs and therefore lower fuel poverty across the UK.

As this document explains, one of the criteria for eligibility was living in one of the 20% most deprived LSOAs in the UK.

The Community Energy Saving Programme, while technically an energy saving scheme, was also targeted with deprivation to help reduce fuel poverty. It required energy suppliers and generators to deliver energy saving measures to customers in deprived areas and was targeted at the 10% most deprived areas on the IMD in England and the 15% most deprived in Scotland and Wales using the relevant indices. OFGEM claims this achieved a saving of 16.31 million lifetime tonnes of CO2.