A new era of a centralised government energy efficiency advice campaign began in the latter part of 2022, and turning your combi boiler flow temperature down was the cornerstone of heating advice. A tip that can work of course, if done correctly. 

Turning down TRVs in uninhabited rooms also featured, if indeed householders had a TRV in the first place, after many years of missed opportunities through successive Building Regulations failing to mandate them as a requirement. More on TRVs later.

Most of the advice featured in the campaign came directly from Number 10, and, despite efforts to engage by many industry groups, the campaign scope was set and any opportunities to participate were limited.

The latent nostalgist in me drifted back to the mid/late 1990s when I took on a marketing management role at the Energy Saving Trust (EST). 

The EST had been given a clear remit to lead on all energy efficiency campaign work. During that time, the organisation had an incredible strength in its ability to engage many different industry groups and them all behind a common ‘Energy Efficiency’ campaign that was based on the idea of saving money and investing in clever technologies. 

We can debate if insulation is that clever all day long, but the important point is that trade bodies were part of the planning process, installers and manufacturers were engaged, 52 Energy Efficiency Advice Centres around the UK were fully armed with materials, and we all sang from the same hymn sheet to leverage many more pounds of marketing spend than the EST could spend alone – an excellent team effort! Many leads were created for installers and we all had a common theme to trade from.

To be fair to the government of today, the imperative was urgent in the second half of 2022, with energy prices rising to unprecedented levels and a general cost of living crisis that was – and still is – creating a lot of hardship. An opportunity to build a strong coalition was not really possible as time was short. However, it is now spring 2023 and we need a different approach.

In a recent discussion with the government campaign communications team, we reminded them that the summer months are a great opportunity to get back to basics and score some quick wins during a typically quieter period for heating installers. 

Start with a signal to act, then present customers with an easily understood set of actions they can undertake – with an installer’s help of course – to improve the efficiency of the heating system; a health check and service if you like.

Let’s start with service. The key task to promote in terms of installer engagement with the customer is the boiler service, and any government campaign should lead with this as part of an overall system health check. From there we can move onto ensuring the system is clean and has appropriate inhibitor.  

While we are on the subject of radiators, we should return to the subject of TRVs. An easy upsell offering a relatively low cost measure for around 18% energy saving. That is in excess of £200 saving per year, ongoing. And the TRVs attract lower rate of VAT too, which is a bonus for the householder.

Finally, while in the customer’s home, and with maybe a little more time to spare than in the middle of the peak heating season, a couple of hours balancing the system can save around 8-10%.  

There are many winners in this approach. Householders receive government-backed and sensible advice, installers are able to pick up some useful work in the summer period, energy is saved, and government ticks the box for helping the public in a practical way.

I am not suggesting for one second that we could recreate such a huge collaborative workspace as we had back in the 1990s at EST, with limited time to spare, however, if government were to signal their intention to run a high level campaign to back this approach, we could all swing behind it. 

For example, installers could download simple PDF flyers from the gov.uk website and use these to demonstrate the story to their customers or to support their own marketing. Manufacturers and other third-party heating advice platforms could do the same.  

All we need is leadership; some early indication of the government’s commitment to this simple step and notice to the industry at least one month ahead of campaign kick-off. 

A collective voice of many companies all working together is a very powerful one, so let’s hope the campaign team take this opportunity to bring our industry into the tent and make some real changes to household fuel bills in the next six months.