Vulnerable Customers and Fuel Poverty

As a supplier of energy we provide heat, light and power to millions of residential customers. Unfortunately a small proportion of our customers find it difficult to pay their energy bills and experience what is described as 'fuel poverty'.

A household is defined as 'fuel poor' if it spends more than 10% of its available income to achieve an adequate level of heating. Fuel poverty is the result of the combined effects of low household income, inadequate and expensive forms of heating and poor insulation and housing standards.

Others customers are classed as 'vulnerable' and may need additional services from us: the elderly, lone parents, the disabled, the chronically sick, the unemployed (specifically those under 25 years of age) and the long-term unemployed.

Tackling fuel poverty is one of our most important social responsibilities. We have therefore created a new customer market team dedicated to identifying opportunities to improve the lives of vulnerable and fuel poor customers, centred on the value of caring more. Winning the RNIB award for best practice in services for blind and partially-sighted customers, establishing the EDF Energy Trust and coming top in the Ofgem energy efficiency mystery shopper survey all help to show our dedication to meeting customer needs.

This section describes in detail some of our efforts to tackle fuel poverty.