Britain’s Soaring Energy Costs Strain Crisis Responders

In the last six months, calls to the National Energy Action’s advice line have tripled from the previous six months. The line has now been shut down until the new year because of the “overwhelming” number of calls and a backlog of referrals. Since the beginning of September, Severn Wye, the nonprofit that runs Warm and Well and other services in the region, has helped more than 2,600 households, 1,000 more than the same time last year. Meanwhile, the phones never stop ringing. There have been nearly 9,000 phone calls since April.

The British government plans to spend 25 billion pounds ($30 billion) to cap energy rates this winter, but the typical household will still face gas and electric bills of £2,500, or about $3,000, a year on average, double what they were a year ago. In April, the annual cap will rise to £3,000.

In the Gloucester office of Warm and Well, Ms. Hewitt discovered there was little she could do for the 72-year-old man on the phone. He wanted help getting money to increase the insulation in his house. Poor building insulation is a chronic problem in Britain, which is reputed to have the draftiest homes in Europe, and progress on insulation faltered over a decade ago. The government recently set aside another £1 billion for insulation, but this caller was ineligible for this and older grants.

But then, almost incidentally, the man revealed something troubling: He and his wife were sitting in their living room, which was just 17 degrees Celsius, or 63 degrees Fahrenheit.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/24/business/britain-energy-crisis-responders.html