At the moment we are hearing a lot about the energy crisis and how it is impacting the UK households but what caused it? There are a number of reasons such as
2020-21 we created less gas levels so suppliers are trying to secure the gas supplies we do have. This has meant that the UK prices are 4 times the rate they were a year ago.
There has been a huge impact of the growth of China who has an increased demand for gas which means less gas tankers are coming to Europe.
The current unstable situation with Russia and Ukraine has meant that gas shipments have been diverted to China rather than coming to Europe and pipeline between both areas cannot make up the shortfall. The Russian backed gas company, Gazprom has refused to increase exports to Europe despite huge profit potential as prices rocket.
The UK has had some issues with the burning of fossil fuels to electricity in gas-fired power plants such as temporary shutting down for maintenance, a tunnel fire in France and it being the least windy year on record since 1961. We also rely heavily on gas to heat our UK homes but have a limited ability to store gas so we leave ourselves open to be hit by any supply and demand issues and the consequential price rise.
A closure of many energy companies means that UK residents have to move to a more expensive supplier as the choice in the energy market shrinks.
How can we adjust our lives to ease the price rises?
There are a number of elements you can start doing now to ease the pain such as
we have spoken to all our tenants as a 'real' person and said please help us and we can help you. We have asked the tenants to be conscious and vigilant of the energy they are using so that the bills we pay as part of our HMO rental business are kept as low as possible. This in turn will ensure that their rent is maintained at the current level and we are also helping to not use up limited resources.
We have also installed a thermostat that can be used remotely on the teams phone to control the heating, which is always over used by tenants who do not pay for the bills
Do your research on who is the best energy supplier for you but make sure you are not taken in by time limited deals that when end work out more expensive for you. Mehdi Punjwani from MoneySuperMarket said that an 'average home of four occupants now uses 13 electronic appliances compared to just four in 1990' so it pays to research.
Look around your home to see ways to use less energy rather than tying to reduce the costs. You can make changes that Rhiannon Philps, NerdWallet suggests that will help reduce the amount of energy you use to save money whilst helping the environment at the same time,
Install a smart thermostat to make heating more efficient
Turning down your thermostat
Buy efficient appliances
Install a new boiler
Wash clothes at a lower temperature
Be smarter about water
Invest in double glazing
Draught-proof your property
Insulate the roof
Monitor your usage
Heating pumps - a good idea?
I read a very interesting article in YPN last month about the installation of heat pumps in your property. The installation heat pump installation target is 600,000 by 2028, but the first issue is having enough qualified engineers to fit the pumps before 2028. The heat pump pulls in air and heats it using a compressor and a ground source heat pump users the heat from underground pumps. I feel that both these pumps are exactly what we will all have in our homes in the future and my confidence was heightened by a conversion programme on Channel 4 who used this system.
But with all good Government ideas we need to consider the insulation of the property, there are grants of £5k but the systems can costs up to £40k so this will have to considered in your budgeting of a project.
As the Green Agenda becomes more of a hot topic alongside the inability for some UK families to heat their home or turn on their lights, schemes like this will make a huge difference. I hope that this article has given some short terms tips on how to save money or reduce your fuel usage.
