EDF will invest £29 million to help its most vulnerable customers this Winter, increasing funding for the third year running. The energy supplier will assist customers struggling with debt by working alongside partners to help them financially and look at ways to keep them warm through home insulation.
For a third year in a row, support will include a return of EDF’s successful debt-matching scheme, which cleared £1.1m of debt in 2023 to help those struggling. Of the customers supported with debt matching up to September 2023, 75 per cent remained debt free after 12 months.
This funding is in addition to the £150 Warm Home Discount payments, which over 380,000 EDF customers are eligible to claim. EDF is also working with several partners to help reduce debt this winter, including Citizens Advice Plymouth, IncomeMax and Charis Grants, who provide a range of support to customers facing financial difficulty.
Last winter, EDF partnerships helped 65,000 customers with support including debt advice, Income maximisation, energy efficiency advice, debt clearance and financial assistance payments, while its Warm Winter Shop helped one thousand customers with electric goods such as kettles, air fryers and slow cookers.
Over the past 10 years, EDF has helped over four million people through its partnerships and the Warm Home Discount.
Philippe Commaret, Managing Director of Customers at EDF, said: “While the Ofgem price cap has reduced in three of the last four quarters, an October rise of 10 per cent will have a significant impact on those who are already struggling.
“We are doing all we can to reduce bills, however, to make a real long-term difference, we believe a social tariff is still needed. Only through meaningful Government and industry-wide intervention, paired with better data matching, such as a single cross-sector Priority Services Register, will affordability improve for those most in need.”
Another long-term solution is access to UK Government insulation schemes. EDF is helping to insulate homes across the country as part of both ECO and GBIS schemes through measures including home insulation, boiler upgrades, upgrading existing electric heating systems to a more energy-efficient option or adding an air source heat pump, all of which saves customers cash and carbon.
Philippe Commaret added: “We are very supportive of the schemes, more people need help to insulate their homes. However, there are flaws with GBIS and we’ve recommended that Government broadens the scheme to allow multiple measures and open it up to more types of homes.”
Since the energy crisis began, EDF will have spent over £40m beyond its statutory requirements on helping customers by the end of the year.
Last year, the supplier effectively rolled back standing charges for over 270,000 customers who received Warm Home Discount to their pre-crisis levels.
The energy supplier is also delivering competitive offers for its customers and earlier this year it launched a fixed-term tracker tariff, EDF Ensure. The tariff stays at £50 below the price cap, discounting the standing charge rather than unit rate so all that sign-up see the same financial benefit.
It has also recently launched a new Sunday Saver challenge, which gives customers up to 16 hours of free electricity on Sundays in exchange for lowering their energy use at peak times during the week.