When Thame Green Living, Green Crendon and Zero Carbon Haddenham joined forces to form Phoenix Energy Community in 2023, whilst we had an overall vision, we wanted to make sure that we prioritised projects that people in our communities most cared about. To do this, we set up a survey in Autumn 2023, and got a great response from a broad selection of people – of different ages, household size and accommodation type – across all of our communities.
The survey was deliberately short, but the results gave a really good indication of the energy state of play. Key headlines:
- Not surprisingly, cost saving measures were rated most important relating to household energy consumption, but both improving energy efficiency and reducing carbon footprint also scored highly.
- 84% of respondents currently have a gas boiler, and 6% have an air source heat pump.
- The majority of people already have a smart meter installed, but still a quarter of households don’t have one.
- Nearly three quarters of respondents to the survey don’t know the EPC rating of their home
- Whilst a significant number of survey respondents already have solar installed on their houses, solar remained the #1 item people are interested in
- There was overwhelming support for community-led renewable energy generation – at 98%!
The majority of respondents to the survey also expressed interest in energy saving information an initiatives organised at a community level.
We’ve got plenty to work on!