A pioneering community network set up to support vulnerable people across the region with their energy costs is celebrating after hitting a major milestone.

Selby-based Yorkshire Energy Doctor CIC set up its ‘Community Energy Ambassadors’ scheme during the first Covid lockdown in April 2020 to offer specialist online training to voluntary and public sector bodies looking after vulnerable residents in their community.

Backed by funding from Northern Gas Networks (NGN), the gas distributor for the north of England, the courses focus on providing reliable advice on how to cope with soaring energy bills.

Three years on, Yorkshire Energy Doctor is celebrating having accredited 500 Ambassadors  from over 250 organisations across Yorkshire, the North East and Cumbria.

Kate Urwin, Director of Yorkshire Energy Doctor, said: “The Community Energy Ambassadors project is all about equipping trusted organisations and individuals with up-to-date information and practical resources on all things to do with energy and support schemes, information that can then be shared with vulnerable households in their own local communities. This includes spreading the word on important ways to stay safe and well and our Energy Ambassadors have given talks on the risks of carbon monoxide and signed vulnerable households onto the Priority Services Register.”

“Our course is nothing like it was when we started in 2020 as the whole energy landscape has changed so much. We’ve moved from encouraging people to save money by switching energy supplier to dealing with unprecedented energy prices and supporting people through the current energy crisis.”

Feedback provided from the Energy Ambassadors shows that nearly 7,000 people have received energy advice on the back of the project with £182,512 of financial savings identified. Many more have received information through newsletters and social media channels.

Kate added: “Millions of households are struggling this winter and working with our trained Energy Ambassadors has been an excellent way of cascading information into local communities, reaching far more people than we could ever achieve on our own.”

Eileen Brown, NGN’s Customer Experience Director, said: “We’re committed as a business to doing everything we can to help and support our most vulnerable customers. Sometimes the best way we can do this is to provide financial backing to fantastic community-based organisations like Yorkshire Energy Doctor, who are doing such great work on the ground.”

Watch a short film showing what the project is all about here: https://youtu.be/RP0mv0H-_0g

If you have links to your local community or support vulnerable households, you can book onto a future course here https://www.eventbrite.com/cc/energy-ambassadors-141409