AN INITIATIVE designed to help Essex residents reduce their gas and electricity bills saved an average of £258 for each of the 1,644 households who took part.
The Essex Energy Switch was delivered for the seventh time by Essex County Council between December 2019 and March 2020.
The Essex Energy Switch is a county wide collective energy switching campaign designed to help Essex residents reduce their gas and electricity bills.
Registration was free and only took five minutes to complete.
This year there was an added bonus to the initiative as the winning electricity tariffs provided 100 per cent renewable electricity.
Residents saved on energy bills, reduced their carbon footprint and the Essex Energy Switch provided an easy route for residents to switch to renewable electricity.
Following this development, the Essex Energy Switch now requires all bidding companies to provide 100 per cent renewable electricity for future initiatives.
The campaign saw over 5,000 residents registering for the scheme.
1,644 households switched their energy to one of the three winning suppliers with each household estimated to save on average £258.
It is estimated that the total avoided carbon emissions from this scheme equates to the removal of 1,059 cars from the road.
Councillor Simon Walsh, Essex County Council Cabinet Member for Environment and Climate Change Action, commented on the scheme: “Now in its seventh year, the Essex Energy Switch is proving to be an easy and cost-effective way for all Essex households to make the switch to renewable energy.
“The amount of savings made by Essex residents using the Essex Energy Switch speak for themselves – with more than £3.7m saved overall since the scheme launched in 2014.
“This is a fantastic initiative that benefits individuals and local communities.
“I’m pleased to see it has been a success this year and Essex County Council will be running the initiative again in October and December this year.”
In October this year the Essex Energy Switch cycle will begin again, when energy companies will once again bid at an auction to see who can offer the lowest energy tariff to households who have signed up to the initiative.
Households can quickly and easily sign up for this October round of the initiative right now as registration is open.
Once the winning bidder has been selected, anyone who has registered will receive a personal offer letter outlining the savings they could make.
Should they choose to accept the offer, the switching process will be done for them.
The Essex Energy Switch is managed by iChoosr, a national organisation which specialises in maximising the power of group buying.
You can register, and find further details of the initiative, here
