ENERGY workers will find out the hard way what it is like to get cut off during the winter this week.

And after they stumble out of a mobile refridgeration unit, staff will be lectured about being cold by polar explorer Sir Ranulph Fiennes.

The stunt is being organised by npower to help staff at the electricity and gas supplier's control centre in Peterlee, County Durham, recognise when callers may be suffering from fuel poverty.

It ties in with the launch of npower's Spreading Warmth campaign, an initiative to assist vulnerable customers and help support the Government in tackling fuel poverty.

To underline the problems of being without power in the winter, workers will be encouraged to hold meetings in a portable cold room.

A purpose-build unit containing a dining and living room, it is designed to mirror the cold, dark and damp conditions found in homes where the power has been disconnected during winter.

As if that is not bad enough, the staff will then listen to the blood-chilling accounts from Sir Ranulph of how he has diced with death in sub-zero temperatures during his frequent polar explorations.

Sir Ranulph, who has led more than 30 polar expeditions and lost the lower portion of his left hand to frostbite, has been described by the Guinness Book of Records as the world's greatest explorer.

According to Government figures published in 2003, two million homes in the UK were suffering fuel poverty, including 95,000 in the North-East.

However, it is now estimated that the national figure may stand at more than three million homes.

With rocketing fuel prices in recent weeks, National Energy Action predicts that for every ten per cent increase in fuel prices, an extra 50,000 homes fall into poverty.