Hillcrest turns up the HEAT at awards ceremony
HEAT offers a range of free services to tenants including advice on saving energy in the home, dealing with energy companies on households’ behalf and arranging cost-saving modifications to homes.
Hillcrest Energy Advice Team (HEAT), part of Hillcrest Homes, was presented with an award at Energy Action Scotland’s annual Fuel Poverty Heroes Awards.
HEAT offers a range of free services to tenants including advice on saving energy in the home, dealing with energy companies on households’ behalf and arranging cost-saving modifications to homes.
The award was made on the back of work HEAT have been carrying out to identify levels of fuel poverty in the homes they manage.
Over the past three years the team has devised an occupancy assessment process which generates a specific fuel poverty score for each household. This allows the team to target resources where they are needed most.
Energy Action Scotland’s chief executive, Frazer Scott said: “Fuel poverty is growing problem in Scotland at the moment, and driven by the cost of living crisis and heavy energy price increases, it’s a problem that is rapidly getting worse.
“The work HEAT is doing to actually identify with hard evidence the extent of fuel poverty in their homes, allows them to make decisions to effectively support these households with the type of help they need. As a model it works and should be seen as a benchmark for other organisations working in this area.”
Hillcrest Homes manages more than 6,000 homes across Dundee, Edinburgh, Angus, Perthshire, Fife and Aberdeen.
Energy Action Scotland’s annual awards are an opportunity for the national organisation – which campaigns to raise awareness of fuel poverty and lobby the Scottish Government to make positive changes – to recognise those across Scotland that have made significant impacts in combating fuel poverty.
So far HEAT has assessed over 1,000 households, with data showing 80% of households in fuel poverty.
This data has allowed the team to intervene to help through assisting in changing to a cheaper supplier and tariff, looking at debt write off schemes, offering advice on how to use energy efficiently, installation of showers and help with benefits.
The team also won praise for their HEAT Heroes vol. 2 Activity comic book.
The comic encourages children to save energy by challenging them, through activities and puzzles, to defeat a fictional villain - Coldemort.