2024 has been a busy year as we continue to see the lasting effects of the energy crisis. In April, the newest report for fuel poverty statistics was published showing 2022 figures. This report showed that the number of England’s households in fuel poverty had risen slightly, although the percentage remained at 13.1%, but that the West Midlands saw the percentage increase from 18.5% to 19.6%. In fact, broken down even further, all the counties in our area saw an increase in the number of households experiencing fuel poverty. Although there is a delay on the reporting, we can assume that without a significant decrease in the energy price, the figures have probably stayed the same, if not increased, over the last year.

In the first half of this year, we published a new Act on Energy website to increase the number of people who can benefit from our information. Although we can only provide over the phone information to the area we cover, the website has a number of resources that can provide useful information to people worldwide. We also developed the website with a range of accessibility tools such as colour themes, enlarged text, read-aloud, and over 100 languages. This helps vulnerable people access the same support, which is particularly important to us: everyone deserves to understand what they are being charged for, when it comes to their energy, and how they can reduce their cost.

As a charity, we rely on funding through grants and from delivering projects with other organisations. 2024 has been a brilliant year for continuing work on current projects, renewing funding for new phases of projects that ended throughout the year, and gaining new funding for brand new projects. One of the biggest projects we saw renewed this year was Warmer Homes West Midlands¹, which saw its initial 2-year project end in October but was awarded new funding through the Energy Redress Scheme to allow us to recommence for another two years. We also received funding for a new Direct Access to Wellbeing Service² project through the Cadent Foundation which sees us work in partnership with Birmingham Community Healthcare Charity to provide in-depth support to clients at risk of readmission to hospitals due to cold homes.

2024 saw an exciting development for Act on Energy as we moved our Birmingham office into the centre of the city to provide a centralised location that could be utilised for hosting external training as we became a recognised training centre for our own energy related qualifications and certificates. As the energy situation continues to change and affect more people every day, we have seen a number of organisations looking to expand their knowledge around energy awareness to provide additional support to clients, staff and to take home to their families. With over 26 years of experience in the energy sector, we felt it was our duty to make this information readily available, with a focus on providing some free training to front-line workers and offering training courses for wider organisations.

Over the year, we were also re-awarded the contracts for delivering several Household Support Funds as they were extended into new phases twice in 2024. Having councils who are confident in our ability to deliver funds to their vulnerable communities, goes a long way to further establishing Act on Energy as an organisation that people can trust. This was also proven true when Cadent included us in their Winter Support Scheme for the end of their 2023/24 project. This scheme proved especially popular, and our team were able to deliver £65,000 of support to over 1000 residents across our area in just two months. Our deliverance of the scheme was so successful that Cadent included us again in their 2024/25 campaign.

Overall, this year has seen Act on Energy reach a lot of milestones in the number of residents supported, number of staff in the charity, and in targets being met throughout our projects. Through 2025 we are expecting a lot of new and exciting projects to begin, that will help us to continue the support we give households in fuel poverty, but also allow us to continue the equally important work around moving towards a net-zero community for everyone.

¹ actonenergy.org.uk/news/whwm-phase-3

² actonenergy.org.uk/news/new-project-daws

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