Friday 30th September 2016

Heat Trust has today launched its Heat Cost Calculator. Designed specifically for domestic customers served by new district heating schemes, the Heat Cost Calculator is a new online tool that will allow customers to compare their annual heating and hot water costs with a typical, alternative heating system.

The Calculator has been developed to help improve transparency in the sector by increasing public access to information on heating and hot water costs. Customers simply need to input their postcode, property size and annual heat and hot water use (as set out in a heat bill) to compare against a similar sized property heated with an individual gas boiler.

Work is already underway to expand the Heat Cost Calculator to provide a comparison against electric heating as well as gas heating.

Following its launch, all heat suppliers that have registered heat networks with Heat Trust will be required to inform their customers that the Heat Cost Calculator is available.

Bindi Patel, Head of Scheme for Heat Trust said:

“We are delighted to take the first step in providing a publicly available Heat Cost Calculator.

The will help provide customers on district heating networks with better information on how the cost of their heating and hot water compares to a common alternative. For the first time this Calculator helps customers better understand their district heating bills.

This is a starting point and work will soon be underway to offer a calculator based on electric heating at a future date.”

Mike Reynolds, Director of SSE Heat Networks, said:

“As a proud founding member of the Heat Trust, SSE Heat Networks welcomes the introduction of the Heat Cost Calculator. We believe that district heating has a pivotal role to play in the future energy mix – not just for decarbonisation and improving efficiency but also, and crucially, for affordability. As the sector grows rapidly and new customers connect every day to district heating networks we believe this kind of simple and accessible tool will help consumers to both scrutinise the prices they are paying, and to understand more clearly what they are buying.”

The Heat Cost Calculator can be accessed from the Heat Trust website here: www.heattrust.org/index.php/heat-cost-calculator

ENDS

Notes to Editors

About the Heat Cost Calculator

There are few publicly available information sources to help customers get a sense of the cost of district heating compared to an alternative.

The Heat Cost Calculator is the first publicly available online tool developed to provide customers living on district heat networks, with an indication of what it would cost to heat a similar sized property using an individual gas boiler. The Calculator takes the amount of heat a customer uses (or an estimate if consumption data is not available) and factors in boiler efficiency, repair and maintenance costs, and the cost to replace a boiler at the end of its lifetime, for the size of property.

The Heat Cost Calculator is a guide, not a bespoke comparison for each individual householder. It is for information purposes only and is not intended to show whether or not a particular heat price is fair. If a customer has any concerns about their heat charge, they should, in the first instance, contact their supplier directly.

More information on the Heat Cost Calculator, including frequently asked questions, can be found on the Heat Trust website: http://www.heattrust.org/index.php/heat-cost-calculator

What is Heat Trust and what does Heat Trust do?

Heat Trust is leading customer protection for the district heating sector. Launched in 2015, Heat Trust puts in place a common standard in the quality and level of customer service that domestic and micro-business customers should expect from heat energy suppliers. It also provides customers free access to the Energy Ombudsman.

The standards of service have been designed to be comparable to those required by electricity and gas suppliers. Areas covered by Heat Trust include: support for vulnerable heat customers; procedures for reporting and responding to a fault or emergency; metering and billing, debt management and complaint handling.

There are currently 43 networks across GB registered with Heat Trust covering 22,700 customers. A map of all registered heat networks can be found here: http://www.heattrust.org/index.php/members

Heat Trust is run by Heat Customer Protection Ltd which is a not-for-profit organisation.

Contact details

Bindi Patel, Head of Scheme
020 3031 8740
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

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