Warm weather means lower heating costs

15 March 2007

BRUSSELS – The mild winter pushed down heating costs by almost a third. An average family that uses heating oil saved about EUR 400 this winter. But gas and electricity use also dropped spectacularly over the past few months, VRT radio reported today.

This winter was one of the warmest ever and so many families put on the heating a lot less. That can be seen in the energy bills, says Johan Mattart of the federation of fuel dealers (Brafco).

“We are counting on a drop in sales of about 20 to 30 percent. An average family that generally uses about 3,000 litres of fuel a year will save about 500 euro,” Mattart said.

But even those households that don’t use heating oil benefited this winter, since regular natural gas use also fell dramatically over the past weeks. But there will not be a much saving on an annual basis however, say the suppliers, because the second half of the summer was a great deal cooler than normal.

Subject: Belgian news