Advice will be tailored to customers’ individual needs and provided by a team of trained energy saving experts. The new service has been trialled over summer and is now being rolled out country-wide. Through the new scheme Octopus hopes to make personal visits to at least 500,000 customer homes over the course of this winter.
This comes as energy prices are set to rise to £3,549 per year for an average UK home, further increasing the financial burden on households this winter.
There are several effective ways to lower energy consumption without compromising on comfort including turning down the water flow temperature of the gas boiler that is heating the home – a measure that can save people up to 8 percent off their gas bills.
Octopus’ ‘Energy Helpers’ will offer practical energy saving advice like the boiler flow tip as well as personalised measures to help lower energy usage and bring down bills. Most advice can be delivered at the doorstep, but Octopus’ DBS-checked ‘Energy Helpers’ will also be equipped with thermal imaging cameras in the colder months. If invited in, they will also be able to identify hidden draughts in customers’ homes and suggest low-cost ways to close them.
This builds on Octopus Energy’s ‘Winter Workout’ energy efficiency programme, which last winter knocked 12 percent off customers’ gas consumption on average, saving them almost £5 million on bills. Following findings that heating a person not the entire home can save people nearly a fifth on their gas bills, Octopus last winter also offered 8,000 electric blankets to customers that needed them most, saving them £300 on their energy bills. Both schemes will run again this winter.
“We speak to over 30,000 customers each day and know that many people are worried and struggling to pay their bills this winter” said Rebecca Dibb-Simkin, Chief Product Officer at Octopus Energy Group. “We’re doing all we possibly can to cushion the impact of the crisis on people. 100 percent of our profits have gone to keeping prices lower for our customers, and we’ve already absorbed £150 million of the cost increase on behalf of them. We also recently doubled our ‘Octo Assist’ fund in size to £15 million, which has already helped over 55,000 people. Our ‘Energy Helpers’ scheme adds a new layer to this support network and means we can provide even more personalised help to our customers this winter.”
The scheme is open from today (8th September 2022).
For additional information:
