Energy Efficiency ‘Important’ For Reducing Fuel Bills

Households around the UK are losing out on energy savings because they don’t have the necessary funds to make energy efficiency improvements to their homes.

The UK Energy Research Centre (UKERC) suggested that improvements to home heating, insulation, lighting and appliances could cut the amount of energy used in UK homes and save the average household £270 a year in bills.

Investing in efficient heating, lighting, controls and insulation could bring a net benefit of £7.5 billion to the UK economy, they added.

Jim Watson, director of the UKERC, said that the government needs to put energy efficiency improvements at the heart of its plans to reduce the UK’s overall energy usage.

“This research proves that there is still huge potential to save energy from UK homes,” he asserted.

Earlier this year, research by the UKERC found that one-sixth of the UK’s emissions reductions between 1970 and 2016 were accounted for by a drop in demand for energy, with the remainder as a result of the growing use of renewable and cleaner energy sources.

Reducing demand is important in cutting the country’s CO2 emissions in the future, the organisation stated, and improved energy efficiency in homes could be one way of doing that.

Given that a group of scientists warned earlier this year that increasing renewable use alone isn’t enough to slow global warming, energy efficiency improvements in the home could prove to be more important in the coming years.

Of course, encouraging more homes and businesses to adopt renewable energy in Cumbria and elsewhere around the country will also help.