Utilita Energy to pay £175k for carbon emissions reduction failings

The supplier’s failure to meet its obligations could have led to customers missing out on £30,000 of savings on their energy bills

Utilita Energy is to pay £175,000 for failing to meet its carbon emission reduction obligations, which could have led to customers missing out on £30,000 of savings on their energy bills.

Ofgem said the energy supplier will pay the amount to the energy redress fund over its failure to deliver its obligations under the Energy Company Obligation (ECO) scheme between April 2015 and September 2018.

ECO is a government energy efficiency scheme, administered by Ofgem, to help reduce carbon emissions and tackle fuel poverty, for example, by replacing a broken heating system or upgrading an inefficient one.

Utilita Energy also missed its overall target to reduce carbon emissions from customers’ homes under the Carbon Emissions Reduction Obligation (CERO) by 2% as well as two sub-obligations to reduce emissions for vulnerable households in rural areas and insulate homes with solid walls by 20% and 3% respectively.

As a result of not delivering them, customers could have missed out on £30,000 of savings on their energy bills, according to Ofgem.

Utilita Energy said its lack of monitoring led to over-delivery against some obligations and the under-delivery against others, leading to non-compliance.

It has volunteered to provide more regular updates for the next phase of the scheme – ECO3 – and assured Ofgem it has the processes in place that will effectively manage its delivery.

The regulator has decided not to take formal enforcement action, taking into account the steps the energy supplier has taken to address its failings.

A spokesperson from Utilita Energy told ELN: “We are sorry we did not meet our ECO2 obligation. We fully accept the fine and thank Ofgem for its patience and understanding. This was simply down to administrative failings that we have subsequently rectified.

“We firmly maintain that we actually over delivered on the required quantity of carbon savings – but some were not recorded in the final total – and Ofgem has acknowledged this.”

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