EDF invests £29m to help the most vulnerable this winter
- New initiative launched as EDF announces £29m funding to help customers this winter.
- Funding is in addition to the £128m spent on ECO and GBIS schemes in 2024 as well as £57m on the Warm Home Discount.
- 75% of EDF customers supported with debt matching up to September 2023 remained debt free after 12 months.
EDF will invest £29m to help its most vulnerable customers this Winter – increasing funding for the third year running.
The energy supplier will help customers struggling with debt, working alongside partners so that it can help the most vulnerable, both financially and by helping keep them warm and insulate their homes.
For a third year in a row, support will include a return of EDF’s successful debt-matching scheme, which cleared £1.1m of debt in 2023 to help those struggling. Of the customers supported with debt matching up to September 2023, 75% remained debt free after 12 months. This funding is in addition to the £150 Warm Home Discount payments, which over 380,000 EDF customers are eligible for.
EDF is also working with several partners to help reduce debt this winter, including Citizens Advice Plymouth, Income Max and Charis Grants, who provide a range of support to customers facing financial difficulty. Last winter, EDF partnerships helped 65,000 customers with support including debt advice, Income maximisation, energy efficiency advice, debt clearance and financial assistance payments, while its Warm Winter shop helped 1,000 customers with electric goods such as kettles, air fryers and slow cookers. Over the past 10 years, EDF has helped over four million people through its partnerships and the Warm Home Discount.
A new initiative by EDF will see ‘Energy Doctors’ target fuel-poor areas with thermal cameras to identify and offer extra support to houses with EPC ratings of D or below.
‘Energy Doctors’ will visit some of EDF’s most vulnerable customers in fuel-poverty risk areas in north London to offer holistic support and identify opportunities to increase energy efficiency of homes: completing EPCs free of charge, helping customers become eligible for other financial support such as Warm Home Discount and the ECO/GBIS insulation schemes and work with partners, such as IncomeMax, to identify further opportunities to help.
Following a successful trial last winter, EDF is also working with vulnerable customer management specialists Sonex, who will work with the supplier to help identify and establish relationships with hard-to-reach customers who have become disengaged, helping to provide the customer with tailored solutions appropriate for their circumstances.
Philippe Commaret, Managing Director of Customers at EDF, said: “Whilst the Ofgem price cap has reduced in three of the last four quarters, an October rise of 10% will have a significant impact on those who are already struggling.
“We are doing all we can to reduce bills, however, to make a real long-term difference, we believe a social tariff is still needed. Only through meaningful Government and industry-wide intervention, paired with better data matching, such as a single cross-sector Priority Services Register, will affordability improve for those most in need.”
Another long-term solution is access to Government insulation schemes. EDF is helping to insulate homes across the country as part of both ECO and GBIS schemes through measures including home insulation, boiler upgrades, upgrading existing electric heating systems to a more energy-efficient option or adding an air source heat pump, all of which saves customers cash and carbon.
It is playing a leading role in GBIS, having installed over 30% of all measures and will spend £128m this year on ECO and GBIS. Since 2022 it has helped over 31,000 customers - this includes £10m spent forward from 2025 into 2024.
Philippe Commaret added: “We are very supportive of the schemes, more people need help to insulate their homes. However, there are flaws with GBIS and we’ve recommended that Government broadens the scheme to allow multiple measures and open it up to more types of homes.”
Since the energy crisis began, EDF will have spent over £40m beyond its statutory requirements on helping customers by the end of the year.
Last year, the supplier effectively rolled back standing charges for over 270,000 customers who received Warm Home Discount to their pre-crisis levels.
The energy supplier is also delivering competitive offers for its customers and earlier this year it launched a fixed-term tracker tariff, EDF Ensure. The tariff stays at £50 below the price cap, discounting the standing charge rather than unit rate so all that sign-up see the same financial benefit. It has also recently launched a new Sunday Saver challenge, which gives customers up to 16 hours of free electricity on Sundays in exchange for lowering their energy use at peak times during the week.
Find out more information about how EDF is helping its vulnerable customers.
About EDF
EDF is driving the transition towards An Electric Britain – a secure, affordable, low-carbon future for everyone. As Britain’s biggest generator of zero carbon electricity, we are investing more than £100 million weekly in Britain’s electricity infrastructure. We supply millions of customers with electricity and help homes and businesses switch to electricity for heating, transport and industrial processes.
We operate five nuclear power stations and more than 35 onshore wind farms and three offshore wind farms. Since 2009, EDF has invested almost £9 billion in the nuclear fleet to improve reliability and extend station lifetimes. The five generating stations currently supply about 12% of the UK’s electricity demand.
EDF is building the UK's nuclear renaissance with the construction of a new nuclear power station at Hinkley Point C. We are a minority investor (12.5%) in and major supplier to a replica plant at Sizewell C in Suffolk. Hinkley Point C and Sizewell C will provide low carbon electricity to meet 14% of UK demand and power around 12 million homes. EDF Group companies Framatome and Arabelle Solutions have a presence in the UK and manufacture critical equipment such as reactor pressure vessels and turbines.
EDF is enabling its 5 million customers, both in business and at home, to choose electric solutions that save cash and carbon, whether it is buying an electric car, generating and storing electricity, selling energy back to the grid or installing solar panels or a heat pump. In 2025, EDF’s Customers business was ranked as one of the Sunday Times’s Best Place to Work.
It is also one of the UK’s leading developers of renewable energy through EDF power solutions UK and Ireland. We have more than 2GW of renewable generation in operation and over 10GW in construction, planning and development across a range of technologies including onshore and offshore wind, solar and battery storage.
We are one of the largest suppliers to British business and a leading supplier of innovative energy solutions that are helping businesses become more energy independent. In addition, the company’s energy services business, Dalkia, one of the UK and Ireland’s largest technical service providers.
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