Burning Holes in Government Fuel Payment Plan

At the weekend it was leaked by a senior civil servant travelling on a train, that the government have it laying in the wings for a "Fuel Payment Plan", the one-off payment of £150 would be targeted at those in receipt of child benefits, the total number of people that are set to benefit from this windfall is estimated to be over seven million households, requiring in excess of £1 billion.

Taking into consideration the "Winter Fuel Payments" paid to 11.7m people over 60 years in age, which costs a further £2 billion pounds. A total of £3 billion is effectively subsidising energy, making it cheaper, less expensive to use. In times when we should be reducing energy, friend of the blog and chief executive of the Energy Saving Trust, Philip Sellwood, believes that this money would be better spent and more effectively in terms of energy reduction and environmental benefit (not to mention the 17.5% return to the government from VAT, instead of the 5% on fuel), if this money was invested into energy saving measures.

For example, £3 billion could easily insulate every cavity wall in the country. Saving those householders £720m a year, every year (without inflation of energy costs), saving 4.8m tonnes of CO2 annually.

Philip Sellwood posted his own back of envelope savings on his blog;

Our own stats show that with £150, a householder could:

Draught proof an entire house, saving around £25 a year with an outlay of around £90.
Buy a hot water tank jacket, saving around £20 per year, with an outlay of just £12.
Fully insulate all pipe work, saving around £9 per year, with an outlay of just £9.
Replacing existing light bulbs with energy saving ones. With a typical cost of around £3 per bulb it would be possible to replace every light bulb in the house. This could save around £45 a year or £600 over the lifetime of the bulbs!

My maths was never much good, but even I can see that by spending this £150 on energy saving measures means saving around £100 this year, next year, the year after....well, you get my drift!

My own quick back of envelope calculation suggest that each household would reduce their CO2 emissions by 710kg. £3billion would be enough to offer all these measures to every household in the UK saving 14.91m tonnes of CO2. If the government instead decided to invest all the money into wind turbines, and start their own government wind co-op they could install a minimum of 300 wind turbines with up to 2GW, almost doubling the current capacity, providing, clean green energy for 1.2m homes, or approximately 5% of UK domestic properties.

The scheme has not yet been given final approval. The Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (DBERR) confirmed that further help with fuel bills was being considered, but insisted no decisions had been taken. So now is the time to get it right, and make positive changes, so that the money makes a return socially, environmentally, and of course politically.

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