Bedminster Energy Group wins £53,000 award to help reduce fuel bills

Bedminster Energy Group has been successful in its bid for an award of £53,000 from the Department for Energy and Climate Change to support its work to help save energy and reduce fuel bills in Bedminster and Southville. 

The group has ambitious plans to help people across the area to reduce their energy use and get their fuel bills down.

It plans to use the award to commission a comprehensive assessment of the housing stock, carry out surveys of local homes, and run a series of community events and activities that will help people see the options for energy saving and choosing 'green' energy technologies at home. 

The Southville Community Development Association – the charity that operates the Southville Centre – helped the Bedminster Energy Group in its bid for funding.

Its CEO Simon Hankins said:  "We are delighted to be supporting Bedminster Energy Group with this work.

"It's great news for the group and for the area and we're looking forward to seeing what can be achieved."

The funding has to be used by the end of the March so the volunteers in the group are keen to get going as soon as possible.

Mike Ginger from the group said: "We face a huge challenge in the future keeping energy bills down and making homes warmer. 

"This project will support our local community to cut energy use, reducing pressure on family budgets and helping the environment.  

"Bedminster Energy Group is part of the Sustainable Southville Project which has a track record of local projects including the Best of Bedminster show, turning scrap land into community gardens, promoting walking and cycling and producing the local Green Map."

The group plans to gather information about the 12,000 homes in the area and use expertise from the research team at the Bristol-based Centre for Sustainable Energy to establish exactly how much money we spend on energy in our homes at the moment.

They will look at ways to get the best bill savings for each of the different types of housing and share information about what people can do at low cost to see results straight away, as well as explaining the options available to pay for more expensive home improvements like solid wall insulation, and energy generation technologies such as solar panels.

The group's first event is this Saturday afternoon at Faithspace (see details here) where they will be running talks and demonstrations and giving away free energy saving kits.