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British Gas is offering anyone who refers a vulnerable person to them £50 if that person then lets the firm install free insulation. The vulnerable person will also get £50.
The move is designed to help British Gas meet its carbon emissions reduction target (Cert) which obliges it to offer measures to reduce carbon emissions. Vulnerable customers – those on low incomes, the elderly and the sick – are given a higher priority under Cert but energy companies have found it difficult to identify them.
Currently, data protection laws make it difficult for energy companies to work out who is vulnerable and in need of support. A British Gas spokesman said it was “getting harder and harder to find these customers” and that the 12 week trial was a new way of trying to identify them. He said there was no cap on the amount it would pay the public.
Neither vulnerable customers, nor those that refer them to British Gas, have to be customers of the company but they have to be in receipt of certain benefits like state pension credit or child tax credits or other specific benefits.
Meanwhile the firm’s attempt to tap Thames Water’s customer base have not yet delivered results. A spokesman said its marketing material, which is being sent out on paper bills to Thames Water customers in a bid to sell energy services and offer Cert measures, had only started to be sent out last week. “It’s too early to gauge that yet,” he said.
British Gas parent Centrica will announce its profits for 2011 on Thursday.
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