We secured £235,000 from the Scottish Government to fund posts for 3 Advisors who are trained to provide advice to domestic home energy users in fuel poverty i.e. with more than 10% of their disposable income spent on fuel costs. The Lemon Aid Teams advocate on behalf of clients to obtain grants and secure debt write off, resolve incorrect billing, reconnect those who have self-disconnected from supply due to inability to pay bills, secure Warm Homes Discounts and enable switching to new suppliers to secure deals on tariffs. Over the last 3 years
Over the last 2 year our Lemon Aid fuel poverty service gave advocacy support and advice to more than 2200 clients in Dumfries and Galloway, helping 206 clients who had self-disconnected to reconnect to power supplies and enabling 400 people to gain credit for repayment meters. During the pandemic we distributed more than £21,000 of Energy Vouchers to families in crisis to top up their prepayment meters and, overall, in the last 2 years the Team have generated over £450,000 of financial gains for local people including grants, debt write offs and tariff savings.