Implications and Measurement of Energy Poverty across the European Union

Abstract

Energy poverty, or the inability of households to afford adequate access to energy services, is an issue that can have a significant effect on the quality of life and even the state of health of individuals and even the overall development of a nation. Since it was first brought into focus more than two decades ago in the UK, this topic has gradually gained the attention of academics and policy makers all across the EU and beyond. The current paper addresses the topic by providing not only a renewed discussion, but also an improved energy poverty indicator (with clear and relevant results at the EU level): the Compound Energy Poverty Indicator (CEPI). Moreover, knowing that the risk of poverty and social exclusion, efficiency of heating systems, total consumption of energy per household and rising energy prices tend to increase the severity of this problem in some countries, CEPI is then included into an econometric model so as to determine some possible factors that tend to put pressure on an already existing issue of energy poverty. The results of this research are expected to be relevant not only for academics (as it offers insights into the structure and severity of this topic within the European Union), but also for national and EU policymakers who are confronted in the field with the problem of sustainable development.

Energy poverty: A macrolevel perspective

“…Data for the analysis were obtained from Insight_E for 2015, Weekly Oil Bulletin, Eurostat ‐ Energy statistics and Eurostat EU‐SILC survey, and Pvsites Consortium for all 28 EU member states (Table ). To measure energy poverty, we applied a consensual approach (Dubois & Meier, ; Maxim et al, ; Thomson & Snell, ) where the energy‐poverty index (Bouzarovski & Tirado Herrero, ; Thomson & Snell, ) consists of three proxy measures: share of the population unable to keep the home adequately warm, share of the population with arrears on utility bills, and share of the population living in a dwelling with a leaking roof, damp walls, floors or foundations, or rot in the window frames or floor. Following Maxim et al (), the energy‐poverty index is constructed by assigning weights of 0.5 to the first measure and of 0.25 to the other two measures.…”

“…Coreness is conceived in terms of the strength of the evidence in relation to the outcome (Fiss, 2011). The core conditions are present in all three solutions, whereas the complementary conditions are eliminated in the parsimonious solution but appear in the intermediate one (Pattyn, 2011). Ragin (2008) prefers the intermediate solution because it is balanced in terms of parsimony and complexity.…”

Energy Poverty in Southern and Eastern Europe: Peculiar Regional Issues

“…Several specialists in the field, including Dubois (2012), provide discussions on the difficulties of identifying fuel poor households and the need for accurate targeting in order to achieve a successful implementation of abatement policies. The existing body of literature on this topic relies on methods which could be largely grouped into four categories (Maxim et al, 2016;Waddams Price, Brazier, & Wang, 2012): objective measures, subjective measures, direct monitoring and macro assessments. Objective measures of EP rely on the use of a pre-defined energy poverty threshold (such as the ones discussed in the previous section).…”

Creating Smart Energy Cities for Sustainability through Project Implementation: A Case Study of Bolzano, Italy

“…These include, among others, tackling fuel poverty and improving indoor comfort (for cold homes); improving well-being, reducing energy costs; equal access to broadband connectivity; equal platforms for participation and decision-making; provision of, and improvement in, social housing and low-income private dwellings; accessibility to mobility and low mobility cost; and data platforms and living labs to enhance public participatory governance, for example, tackling the complexities associated with fuel poverty is one of the fundamental tenets of SEC projects. This is because between 50 and 125 million European citizens cannot heat their homes adequately at an affordable cost and have inadequate insulation standards, especially the member states in the Central, Southern, and Eastern countries [74,75]. Although there is lack of commonality in the definition of the concept of fuel poverty, the fundamental understanding related to the concept in some jurisdictions such as the United Kingdom is that 10% of income is spent on maintaining adequate heating and cooling regime [76].…”