Councillors warn over power bills for air to water heating pumps

An Offaly councillor has said her “heart broke” to hear of a “shocking” case of a pensioner who now goes to bed several days a week and survives on corn flakes after his home was retrofitted with an air to water heat pump system and he now cannot afford the higher electricity costs.

Clare Claffey, who represents the Social Democrats, said the elderly man has a prepaid meter in his local authority home, but by Monday or Tuesday his money has run out and he cannot afford any more until pension day.

“He said he was eating corn flakes and staying in bed two or three days a week,” Cllr Claffey explained, saying there is an emergency credit of €20 with the meter if you run out, but that has to be paid the next time you top up.

A lot of people on fixed incomes use the meter because you can budget for power costs every week and there is no bill, she continued, adding that this man just didn't realise how much his electricity costs would go up as a result of the air to water heat pump.

Similarly, Fianna Fáil Cllr Declan Harvey said all he is hearing is “horror stories” where power bills are doubling with the new air to water system.

“My question to the council was 'Are all council houses getting an air to water system?' and I was told it is envisaged over time,” he explained. “Retrofitting is a good idea but not everyone can afford it. There are implications in terms of the added expense,” he stressed, adding that this is something many people just can't manage when they are already struggling in a cost-of-living crisis.

“The expense of it is my biggest concern,” he underlined, particularly for someone on a fixed or low income.

Stressing that she is not against the retrofitting project for council homes either, Cllr Clare Claffey asked that the council explain to people being offered a retrofit of their home that power bills will go up and see if they can afford that.

Cllr Claffey would also love to see a more person-centred approach from the local authority to check in afterwards to see how tenants are finding the system, if there are problems, and point them to agencies or organisations who can help. However, she admitted the local authority just isn't resourced enough to do this kind of follow-up.

While the Social Democrats representative conceded that anyone benefitting from the retrofit scheme will have an A-rated house, Cllr Claffey repeated that she would like to see people being expressly told that their “electricity bill will be significantly higher” with the air to water system, and if that was something they could manage.

Cllr Claffey raised the issue at the recent monthly meeting of Offaly County Council and was told that people in local authority homes have the option to accept or decline the retrofitting offer.

“My heart broke (for this man). Before (the retrofit) he would have his range for heat and cooking. It's awful really to think of him going to bed several days a week,” she said, of the man who is living alone and simply existing from pension day to pension day. “He wasn't expecting that (rise in power costs), he thought the retrofit was going to be brilliant and it was, but he just didn't realise the cost of the power.”

The Banagher-based public representative highlighted the case at the recent Offaly County Council meeting, and while this was only person who has contacted her on this issue, she wonders if there are others out there in the same boat.

“The scary thing is with the winter coming we don't know how bad it will get (in terms of costs),” she warned.

Meanwhile, it emerged this week that just 89 applications have been completed as part of Minister Eamon Ryan's much heralding retrofitting scheme for private homes.

He set a target of 500,000 home upgrades to a BER rating of B2 at least by 2030, or 62,500 a year, but so far just 681 homes have been approved.

Offaly is among a plethora of counties where fewer than ten applications have been submitted for The National Home Energy Upgrade Scheme, run by the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland.

There are only three in counties Laois and Offaly, five in Westmeath and Roscommon and six in Longford, according to figures released to the Irish Examiner newspaper this week.