Heat Trust

Applications have opened today for the latest round (Round 9) of Heat Network Efficiency Scheme (HNES) funding. https://lnkd.in/eCngywt4 Inefficient heat networks result in consumers paying much more for heat and hot water than necessary, so all heat network operators (in England or Wales) should take advantage of this funding to make sure their heat network is operating as efficiently as possible. We await news from The Scottish Government as to whether they will fund a similar scheme north of the border.

🎉 It’s Heat Trust’s ninth birthday! Since our scheme’s launch on 25 November 2015, we’ve grown from protecting 15,000 heat network consumers to 85,000 today. We’re very proud of how our small non-profit organisation has paved the way for future Ofgem regulation of heat networks. We launched two years before the Competition and Markets Authority began its market study of heat networks that resulted in its 2018 call for Ofgem to regulate the sector. We were then, and continue to be, the only consumer-protection scheme for heat networks. Our work has led the way in setting standards of customer care with a proven and scalable assurance framework. Heat Trust registration gives consumers confidence that their heat supplier has not just made a commitment to delivering best-in-class customer service in principle, or on paper, but is independently monitored and held to account against clear standards. Only consumers on Heat Trust registered heat networks are currently able to access the Energy Ombudsman for customer service complaints. Heat Trust’s scheme standards are the foundations on which Ofgem is building its future regulations and we’ll maintain them until equivalent Ofgem protections are both in place and enforced from around 2027. As we enter our tenth year, our priorities remain protecting consumers on our registered heat networks and helping as many heat suppliers as possible get #RegulationReady by registering with us and meeting our standards. Heat Trust registration continues to be a requirement of several government funding schemes for heat networks, including the Green Heat Network Fund (GHNF) and Heat Networks Investment Project (HNIP). #HeatNetworks #ConsumerProtection

Attention Bluesky users - you can now find and follow us there @heattrust.bsky.social We'll use Bluesky for press releases and announcements that we previously posted on X. LinkedIn will very much remain our primary socials channel for general updates and news.

NEWS: Consumer champion calls on government to act on communal heating bills https://lnkd.in/eNwaJspG Households connected to communal or district heat networks are often paying twice as much for their heat as those with their own gas boiler. Heat Trust, the consumer champion for heat networks, has urged the government to take action to lower the cost of heat and has recently met the new heat networks minister, Miatta Fahnbulleh MP, to set out the two reforms needed to bring down heat prices: 1)     Regulate the price of energy (gas and electricity) used by residential heat networks to generate heat. Currently these energy supplies are classed as non-domestic and are unregulated with no price-capping mechanism; and 2)     Ensure that the billions of pounds of essential remediation works needed to address the poor efficiency of existing heat networks do not result in households bearing large capital remediation costs over the coming decade. #heatnetworks #consumers #energybills #costofliving #communalheating #districtheating #heating #energy

Heat Trust has published updated guidance on supporting customers in vulnerable situations or payment difficulty. We’ve also published new guidance for heat suppliers on measuring their customers’ satisfaction: https://lnkd.in/eFmHV86r Our consumer protection scheme requires the heat suppliers for our registered heat networks to proactively identify and support customers in payment difficulty, including offering them affordable repayment plans. Our updated guidance sets out how heat suppliers should proactively identify, contact and support customers that may have difficulty paying a heat bill. It’s designed to be read alongside our existing guidance on use of pre-payment meters and includes best practice actions that heat suppliers should take to check for signs of self-rationing or self-disconnection among their customers.* Our scheme also requires the heat suppliers for our registered heat networks to take various actions to proactively identify and support vulnerable customers. These include maintaining a priority services register of such customers and not suspending their heat supply between October and March. Our updated guidance sets out the latest best practice. Although gathering data on customer satisfaction isn’t currently one of our scheme requirements, doing so is already best practice among the heat suppliers for our registered heat networks. Our new guidance sets out further detail. We expect these areas to be key parts of future Ofgem regulations for heat networks. Heat suppliers that commit to following Heat Trust standards and best practice are therefore getting regulation ready. *Self-rationing is where a customer deliberately limits their heat use to save money for other goods or services. Self-disconnection is where a customer’s pre-payment meter disconnects them from their heat supply because they’ve run out of credit. #heatnetworks #consumerprotection #regulationready

Our Chief Executive Stephen Knight had the pleasure of meeting with the Minister for Energy Consumers, Miatta Fahnbulleh, today to talk about how the government can improve outcomes for heat network consumers (including, importantly, those on already-existing heat networks). #HeatNetworks #ConsumerProtection

Our Managing Director Stephen Knight spoke to BBC Radio London this morning about the need for heat network regulation and investment to improve consumer outcomes. You can listen to the coverage here, which starts at 02:06 (two hours and six minutes in) and which features South London residents facing huge communal heating costs: https://lnkd.in/ey_5Frhu

Did you know we ring a gong whenever a new heat network registers with us? Pre-pandemic we had a real gong in the office. We’re now a remote-working team, but we continue the tradition virtually! In the last five months, we’ve rung the virtual gong to welcome 10 new heat networks to our voluntary consumer-protection scheme. In total, we now protect over 80,000 GB heat network consumers. With future Ofgem regulation planned for heat networks, registering with Heat Trust helps heat suppliers get #RegulationReady! Watkins Energy Ltd has registered Dock 28 in South London and Parkside Garston in Hertfordshire. Metropolitan (as Independent Community Heating Ltd) has registered Chilton Woods in Suffolk. Vattenfall has registered Brent Cross Town in North London (as Vattenfall Brent Cross Ltd) and Midlothian Energy Ltd heat network in Scotland (as Midlothian Energy Ltd). E.ON UK Infrastructure Services has also registered five new heat networks in London – Hounslow High Street Quarter in West London, Nine Elms Point and Wimbledon Stadia in South London, and New Market Place and Fresh Wharf in East London. We’re delighted to welcome Vattenfall Business Solutions UK to our scheme, registered with us as the two entities listed above. You can find out more about their registered heat networks, and why they see Heat Trust registration as a priority for the sector, at: https://lnkd.in/e_JHPBng #HeatNetworks #ConsumerProtection

The Warm Homes: Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund Wave 3 is now open for applications, and will close at midday on 25 November 2024. SHDF provides funding for local authorities and social housing landlords to improve the energy performance of social homes in England. It focuses on supporting energy measures that will help to lower household energy bills. Apply for the scheme: https://lnkd.in/ekP4zfgT #WarmHomes #EnergyEfficiency #Sustainability

Consumers sometimes contact us to say they’ve been told by their heat supplier that Heat Trust registration is ‘too expensive’. So let’s bust that myth… Each heat network registering with us pays a one-off admin fee of £100 plus VAT. They also pay an ongoing annual fee of £3.75 plus VAT for each consumer connected to that heat network (so a heat network supplying 100 flats would pay £375 plus VAT annually). These fees are payable by the heat supplier for the heat network, not by their consumers – though ultimately they may filter through to consumers’ heat bills. We’re a small non-profit and our fees are how we fund the costs of operating our consumer-protection scheme. As more heat networks register with us, we can do more at lower cost. We’ve reduced our annual fee by over 20% since 2020/21. When registering a heat network with our scheme, the heat supplier commits to paying their consumers compensation for any prolonged supply outages on that heat network. They’re also required to pay the case-handling fees for any consumer complaints referred to the Energy Ombudsman for that heat network, along with any remedies awarded by the ombudsman. It’s important to know that similar payments will also be required by future Ofgem regulations, which will build on Heat Trust’s existing customer-service standards. Heat suppliers who register their heat networks with us are therefore proactively ensuring that they’re #regulationready by meeting these standards now, reducing the likelihood of future Ofgem non-compliances and ombudsman referrals. #heatnetworks #consumerprotection