Energy poverty can be understood as the inability of a household to secure a socially and materially necessitated level of energy services in the home. While the condition is widespread across Europe, its spatial and social distribution is highly uneven. In this paper, the existence of a geographical energy poverty divide in the European Union (EU) provides a starting point for conceptualizing and exploring the relationship between energy transitions – commonly described as wide-ranging processes of socio-technical change – and existing patterns of regional economic inequality. We have undertaken a comprehensive analysis of spatial and temporal trends in the national-scale patterns of energy poverty, as well as gas and electricity prices. The results of our work indicate that the classic economic development distinction between the core and periphery also holds true in the case of energy poverty, as the incidence of this phenomenon is significantly higher in Southern and Eastern European EU Member States. The paper thus aims to provide the building blocks for a novel theoretical integration of questions of path-dependency, uneven development and material deprivation in existing interpretations of energy transitions.

International audienceCo-benefits rarely enter quantitative decision-support frameworks, often because the methodologies for their integration are lacking or not known. This review fills in this gap by providing comprehensive methodological guidance on the quantification of co-impacts and their integration into climate-related decision making based on the literature. The article first clarifies the confusion in the literature about related terms and makes a proposal for a more consistent terminological framework, then emphasizes the importance of working in a multiple-objective–multiple-impact framework. It creates a taxonomy of co-impacts and uses this to propose a methodological framework for the identification of the key co-impacts to be assessed for a given climate policy and to avoid double counting. It reviews the different methods available to quantify and monetize different co-impacts and introduces three methodological frameworks that can be used to integrate these results into decision making. On the basis of an initial assessment of selected studies, it also demonstrates that the incorporation of co-impacts can significantly change the outcome of economic assessments. Finally, the review calls for major new research and innovation toward simplified evaluation methods and streamlined tools for more widely applicable appraisals of co-impacts for decision making

No abstract

The widespread recognition of energy poverty as a distinct societal and policy challenge in the EU has resulted in a surge in the number and complexity of energy poverty metrics. Drawing from the body of white and grey literature on domestic energy deprivation indicators now available, the paper offers a review-based discussion on the risks of uncritically elaborating and reporting energy poverty statistics. It identifies key conceptual and methodological challenges including: the diversity of domestic energy services and household needs accounted for; the distinction between actual and required domestic energy expenditures; the setting of thresholds and energy poverty lines; the equivalisation of household incomes and energy expenditures; the consideration of housing costs; the stated, subjective character of responses to survey questionnaires; the measurement of the 'depth' of energy poverty; issues surrounding measurement units and weighted indices; and issues around the socio-demographic, spatial and temporal representativeness of data. Based on the reviewed evidence and author's experience, the paper argues against official, single-indicator energy poverty metrics like the UK's low income-high cost and advocates for multiple-indicator approaches that explicitly acknowledge the shortcomings of each of the methods implemented.

Falling real incomes, rising utility prices and the historically poor thermal quality of the housing stock are some of the main factors that have driven the rise of systemic injustices surrounding energy poverty in the post-communist states of Eastern and Central Europe (ECE). We undertake a socio-spatial and temporal assessment of energy poverty in Hungary, the Czech Republic and Poland, using Household Budget Survey micro-data and the consolidated national results of the EU Survey of Income and Living Conditions. Our results indicate that increases in domestic energy prices and expenditures during the last decade have not been offset by purchasing power gains or energy efficiency improvements, resulting in sustained and growing levels of energy poverty. Capital city regions have fared better than rural areas even if traditional macroeconomic performance indicators do not easily match domestic energy deprivation metrics. We thus question policy approaches that favour income-based solutions and fail to recognise housing-and demography-related vulnerabilities.

No abstract

No abstract

This article focuses on the emergence of 'low-carbon