PULSE will help us understand the real impact of the fuel poverty support we provide to customers. By analysing energy use over time, the project will identify which types of support deliver the greatest benefits and where interventions are most effective. These insights will help us target resources more effectively, improve outcomes for vulnerable customers and support more households to stay safe, warm and well.
What is the project about?
PULSE is helping UK Power Networks understand how effective its fuel poverty support programmes are in improving outcomes for customers.
With customers’ consent, the project will use smart meter data and a new analytical model to examine how energy use changes after support is provided. This will help identify whether customers are better able to heat their homes, manage their bills and access the support they need.
By providing a clearer picture of what works best, PULSE will help target support more effectively, identify customers who may need additional assistance and ensure resources are focused where they can make the greatest difference.
How we’re doing it
PULSE is developing a new way to measure the impact of fuel poverty support and understand whether interventions are helping customers improve their energy wellbeing. The project will begin by creating a proof of concept, followed by a more detailed study to assess its effectiveness and explore opportunities for wider deployment.
Key activities include:
Recruiting customers: Inviting customers to take part in the project through a short survey and obtaining consent to share relevant data.
Developing the model: Combining smart meter data and survey responses to create a model that can identify signs that customers may be struggling with energy costs.
Validating the findings: Testing the model’s insights through follow-up surveys and customer engagement.
Assessing the impact of support: Comparing energy use before and after support has been provided to understand how different interventions influence customer behaviour and outcomes.
Planning for wider adoption: Documenting lessons learned and developing a plan to integrate the outputs into the tools used by vulnerability teams, with the potential to create a scalable solution that could be adopted more widely across the energy sector.
Together, these activities will help build a clearer understanding of which forms of support deliver the greatest benefit, enabling resources to be targeted more effectively and helping more customers stay safe, warm and well.
What makes it innovative
PULSE is an important first step towards a deeper understanding of how fuel poverty support affects customers and how support can be targeted more effectively. The project will help UK Power Networks identify customers who may be struggling and provide evidence on which types of interventions deliver the greatest benefit.
The project will explore whether smart meter data can be used to identify signs of financial hardship, such as customers reducing their energy use to lower bills or running out of credit on prepayment meters. It will also examine how energy use changes after support has been provided, helping to measure the impact of different interventions.
In the future, these insights could enable a more proactive approach to customer support. For example, customers showing early signs of difficulty could be identified and offered assistance before their situation worsens. This could include providing fuel vouchers, advice or other forms of targeted support at the point they are most needed.
Beyond UK Power Networks, the project could establish a new evidence-based approach for assessing the effectiveness of fuel poverty programmes. By providing a clearer understanding of customer outcomes, it has the potential to help energy networks deliver more effective support, improve customer wellbeing and maximise the value of funding available to vulnerable households.
What we’re learning
PULSE will help us understand whether the assistance we provide to customers is making a meaningful difference. The project will explore how energy-use data can be used to measure the impact of our services and identify better ways to help people who may be struggling to afford their energy bills.
Through this project, we expect to learn:
How to safely and securely obtain customer consent to access and use smart meter data.
How to measure the effectiveness of fuel poverty interventions, including whether they help households avoid or move out of fuel poverty and which forms of assistance deliver the greatest benefits.
How energy-use data can be used to identify customers who may need additional help and improve the way support is targeted.
The findings could also benefit electricity networks across the UK by providing a consistent, evidence-based approach to evaluating customer support programmes. This would help organisations make more informed decisions, direct resources where they are most needed and deliver better outcomes for vulnerable customers.
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