Energy Affordability in the EU: The Risks of Metric Driven Policies

Deller, David

doi:10.2139/ssrn.2850876

Cited by 5 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 12 publications

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“…Lawson et al (2015) obtain similar results for New Zealand. Moreover, Waddams and Deller (2017) for UK and Deller (2018) for the EU found that the identification of a common fuel poverty metric based solely on spending criteria is problematic due to heterogeneity between countries. More recently, Fizaine and Kahouli (2018) analyse the use of several objective and subjective measures to categorise fuel poverty and find differences in the profiles of the households depending on the measure and threshold utilised.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Objective vs. subjective fuel poverty and self-assessed health

2020

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Policies towards fuel poverty often use relative or absolute measures. The effectiveness of the official indicators in identifying fuel poor households and assessing its impact on health is an emerging social policy issue. In this paper we analyse objective and perceived fuel poverty as determinants of selfassessed health in Spain. In 2014, 5.1 million of her population could not afford to heat their homes to an adequate temperature. We propose a latent class ordered probit model to analyse the influence of fuel poverty on self-reported health in a sample of 25,000 individuals in 11,000 households for the 2011-2014 period. This original approach allows us to include a 'subjective' measure of fuel poverty in the class membership probabilities and purge the influence of the 'objective' measure of fuel poverty on self-assessed health. The results show that poor housing conditions, fuel poverty, and material deprivation have a negative impact on health. Also, individuals who rate themselves as fuel poor tend to report poorer health status. The effect of objective fuel poverty on health is stronger when unobserved heterogeneity of individuals is controlled for. Since objective measures alone may not fully capture the adverse effect of fuel poverty on health, we advocate the use of approaches that allow a combination of objective and subjective measures and its application by policy-makers. Moreover, it is important that policies to tackle fuel poverty take into account the different energy vectors and the prospects of a future smart and integrated energy system. Abstract.Policies towards fuel poverty often use relative or absolute measures. The effectiveness of the official indicators in identifying fuel poor households and assessing its impact on health is an emerging social policy issue. In this paper we analyse objective and perceived fuel poverty as determinants of self-assessed health in Spain. In 2014, 5.1 million of her population could not afford to heat their homes to an adequate temperature. We propose a latent class ordered probit model to analyse the influence of fuel poverty on self-reported health in a sample of 25,000 individuals in 11,000 households for the 2011-2014 period. This original approach allows us to include a 'subjective' measure of fuel poverty in the class membership probabilities and purge the influence of the 'objective' measure of fuel poverty on self-assessed health. The results show that poor housing conditions, fuel poverty, and material deprivation have a negative impact on health. Also, individuals who rate themselves as fuel poor tend to report poorer health status. The effect of objective fuel poverty on health is stronger when unobserved heterogeneity of individuals is controlled for. Since objective measures alone may not fully capture the adverse effect of fuel poverty on health, we advocate the use of approaches that allow a combination of objective and subjective measures and its application by policymakers. Moreover, it is important that policies to tackle fuel poverty take...

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Objective vs. subjective fuel poverty and self-assessed health

2020

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“…A pan-EU map of energy affordability, based on energy expenditures shares, shows large variations across the EU which questions the appropriateness of a pan-EU fuel poverty metric (Deller 2016). Deller (2016) concludes that the best way that the European Commission can support policy synergy is by making available high-quality data on pan-EU energy affordability and collating robust impact assessments that identify effective policy interventions. As we describe below, this type of data is lacking.…”

Section: Defining Energy Povertymentioning

confidence: 99%

A View from the North: Gender and Energy Poverty in the European Union

Feenstra

Clancy

2020

Engendering the Energy Transition

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Energy poverty in the EU has a gender face; more women than men are struggling to afford the energy services which they need. The structural causes of energy poverty between European countries vary as well as the policies to address access to energy services. A metric approach dominates attempts to define and measure energy poverty which overlooks social characteristics within and between households.While the existing data are limited, this chapter shows that there are clear gender differences, linked to other social characteristics, in the causes of energy poverty and the derived outcomes. This chapter shows that while economic factors are a contributor to energy poverty there are also biological/physiological and socio-cultural factors which are more difficult to capture quantitatively. When tracking policy initiatives to address energy poverty, arguments are presented for including an indicator which reflects the gender dimension of energy poverty and the intersectionality of this issue.

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“…Figure 1 of Deller (2018) provides an overview of how energy affordability (FP) measures can be split between: (i) ENEX indicators, (ii) self-reports of the lived experience, and (iii) proxy indicators. While Deller (2018) and Tirado Herrero (2017) caution against focusing excessively on a single FP metric/definition, Thomson et al (2016) highlight the appeal of headline statistics to galvanise political action; while Thomson et al (2017) and Tirado Herrero (2017) provide overviews of alternative FP measurement approaches in the European context. 16 This broader debate has been influenced by changing official expenditure-based FP metrics in the UK, and the need to utilise perception-based metrics for pan-EU assessments of FP.…”

Section: Existing Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

Fuel Poverty: Potentially Inconsistent Indicators and Where Next?

2020

Self Cite

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The measurement of fuel poverty is critical for judgements about the significance of the problem and the design of policies to address it. Reducing fuel poverty has been a government objective in the UK for many years, and is generally seen through the lens of the government's official fuel poverty statistics. We compare the households identified as fuel poor according to three metrics: (i) the 10% indicator; (ii) the Low Income High Consumption indicator; and (iii) whether households self-report an inability to afford to keep their home warm, using data from the British Household Panel Survey. We find substantial differences in the households identified according to each of these indicators; this highlights a lack of clarity about which households might be considered truly fuel poor. In particular, a surprisingly low proportion of those identified by the 10% and LIHC indicators report an inability to afford to keep their home warm. While this could raise concerns that current fuel poverty policies in the UK are misdirected, instead we emphasise the difficulties of drawing policy conclusions from the differences between the indicators, unless it can be combined with information on households' heating preferences and the in-home temperatures achieved.

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Energy Affordability in the EU: The Risks of Metric Driven Policies

Cited by 5 publications

References 12 publications

Objective vs. subjective fuel poverty and self-assessed health

Objective vs. subjective fuel poverty and self-assessed health

A View from the North: Gender and Energy Poverty in the European Union

Fuel Poverty: Potentially Inconsistent Indicators and Where Next?

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