When Miss L met a member of the Home Energy Scotland team at an energy saving workshop, her journey towards more affordable energy bills began.
After Miss L approached Niall, Home Energy Scotland’s Senior Partnerships Officer, at the event, Niall identified that she was struggling to heat her home and had complex billing issues.
Miss L is a council tenant who lives alone and has a low income. She speaks limited English and is hard of hearing, so was unable to easily communicate with her energy supplier to resolve her issues.
Niall then arranged for his colleague and Energy Carer, Kehinde, to contact Miss L to discuss her issue.
Kehinde visited Miss L at her home and discovered that despite having storage heaters, Miss L was on a single rate tariff. As a result, it was very expensive to heat her home.
Kehinde provided advice on tariffs and heating controls, and contacted Miss L’s supplier on her behalf to arrange for a new tariff and new meter to be installed. A new meter had to be installed as Miss L’s existing meter was restricted and being switched off as part of the upcoming RTS shutdown.
Miss L’s restricted meter was successfully changed to a smart meter, and her tariff changed to an Economy 7 tariff which suited her heating type.
Kehinde recently returned to Miss L’s home to check everything was working ok and contacted the supplier for a final time where the supplier offered Miss L a good will gesture of £100 for the inconvenience caused.
As a result, Miss L now has a working meter, appropriate tariff and is empowered with the information she needs to save money on her energy bills.
Kehinde commented: “It was such a pleasure supporting Miss L. I feel privileged to be able to help her resolve her complex metering issues which were causing her a lot of stress.”
Well done Kehinde for having such an impact on Miss L’s life!
Do you work for an organisation that supports households in Scotland?
If you are supporting someone who you think would benefit from Home Energy Scotland’s support, you can refer them directly via our referral portal. If you are interested in being added to our referral portal, get in touch today.
Changeworks delivers Home Energy Scotland in the south east and Highlands and Islands on behalf of the Scottish Government and Energy Saving Trust.
As well as providing free, impartial expert advice to thousands of people every month to help them to keep warm in their homes for less, they identify funding opportunities for households seeking to install energy efficiency measures.
For more information, give Home Energy Scotland a call on 0808 808 2282 or email and the team will be happy to help you.