Blog- Help with the costs of energy bills

posted on 23 Dec 2011

Have you ever heard of Warm home discount (WHD)?  Many people haven’t.

This scheme has been criticised for not being widely publicised to enable older people to claim a rebate on their energy bills. There are a number of energy suppliers who are involved with the scheme and each have different criteria to decide who can receive the rebate and have each taken a different approach to advising their customers.

The scheme was brought about after a large number of winter deaths last year; it enables the majority of people on pension credits to receive £120.00 back into their own bank accounts. Most people need not do anything to receive their rebate, where as others may need to enquire with their supplier to see if they fall under “broader group”. The government predict that £1.1bn over the next four years will be put into this scheme to aim to help people receiving the credits with the rising costs of energy bills.

The larger energy suppliers have each taken a different approach to informing people if they are eligible to claim back the warm home discount. Some have written to their customers while others have got messages on their websites. This approach has left a majority of the people affected unaware that they are entitled to any help with their bills. This does not affect any previous discount schemes.

If you would like to see more please click here to visit directgov .

Winter Solstice

Yesterday marked the shortest day of the year, so from here on in our days will be getting slightly longer.

This change comes about when the tilt of the earth’s axis is farthest away from the sun. The earth doesn’t orbit the sun in a circular motion, but instead on an axis. The rotation normally takes 365.25 days, which is why we have leap years. As next year marks the leap year the solstice will fall on the 21.12.12. We will start to see the effects of this change soon.