On 18th October, the POWER UP and Cooltorise teams had the pleasure to see many energy poverty advocates in Modena during the 2.5-hour workshop “Energy for the invisible citizen: in search for lasting renewable & fair solutions.” We discussed energy poverty and ways to fight it by working with those most affected. How can they occupy space in decision-making? And what can we actually learn from them? And why do we call “vulnerable” those who show the most strength and resilience? All participants agreed: We must give a loud voice to the invisible citizens if we want the energy transition to be fair and effective. They bring the power we all need!
Session 1: Social impact hackers focusing on policy gaps and how to fill them
Access of people in energy poverty to an energy cooperative
Jan de Pauw – Project engineer at the citizen energy cooperative Ecopower and energy advisor for the city of Eeklo (Belgium)
Jan presented the outstanding energy poverty support program which was initiated by the City of Eeklo together with Ecopower: This scheme, which has been developed and launched in the framework of the POWER UP project, will enable low-income households to become members of an energy cooperative. How? The city pre-finances cooperative shares and lends these to people who would not be able to pay this upfront cost on their own. Over several years, these beneficiaries will then pay the share back through a small monthly fee. As of day one, though, the shareholders will be full members of the Ecopower cooperative including all rights that come with it such as getting renewable energy at a fair price or having a voice at Ecopower’s decision-making. This rolling fund of pre-financed social energy shares makes local renewable energy accessible for all. It is a first of its kind in Europe and has great potential to be implemented in other local governments wanting to help people in energy poverty.
Eeklo is one of 5 pilots which are developing innovative social energy services whereby they are co-designing communities with people in energy poverty. More here.
Modena’s energy agency involved in energy poverty alleviation
Francesca Gaburro from AESS, Modena’s Agency for Energy and Sustainable Development
Francesca presented the initiatives carried out in and around Modena to fight energy poverty. One of them was UNIRE, the Urban Network investing Resources in Energy Community. Energy poverty is embedded in the cities’ SECAP (Sustainable Energy Action Plan) targets and shared renewable energy production is used as one way to alleviate the problem.
View factsheet about Modena’s energy poverty activities in the framework of the EPAH technical assistance
Debates were lively in the facilitated thematic workshops following the presentations. They covered three complimentary topics, each group noted down recommendations to national or local policy-makers. Here they are:
🏡“Housing and health” group
In September 2023 the WELLBASED team published the findings of its most recent small-scale research carried out between October 2022 till April 2023. It shows that low-income households were not comfortably warm in their homes during the past winter and suffered from bad health. This is of particular concern as all five countries covered by the survey introduced emergency measures for the most vulnerable including regulated tariffs and energy vouchers or grants for home energy retrofits.
Starting from the WELLBASED experience, the small group discussed how we can speed up the creation of healthy homes. The topics addressed were:
- Programs need to better address the links between public health and energy access
- We should talk about wellbeing rather than health.
- Any support can start with small measures – e.g. the dissemination of energy efficiency kits – that can allow for contact, empathy and support towards people with ill health
- Social characteristics can exacerbate the problem: e.g. for refugees or other minorities
- There needs to be a massive expansion of funding, including targeted money for people without budget (and who would not be able to repay)
- Better measurements and data collection around the benefits of renovation could help convince people to refurbish
⚡“Energy access and justice” group
To promote a fair energy access to all and energy justice while tackling energy poverty several recommendations emerged from the group discussion:
- Identifying and defining energy poverty locally is a very important step: municipalities should think about how to identify the households that are in vulnerable situations and need support. Several criteria can be used, income is usually the easiest solution, but it can also be the home situation and the ability to maintain and improve the home quality.
- Breaking the administrative silos: to alleviate energy poverty, it’s important to articulate the different municipal departments, energy justice is an opportunity to foster collaboration between sustainability, energy, technical and social services departments. This collaboration is key in delivering lasting actions.
- The approach to promote energy access and justice has to be systemic: we shouldn’t only aim to promote energy access but have a systemic approach promoting renewables production, energy efficiency and sufficiency.
- To promote lasting change it’s important to involve vulnerable households all over the process and create a lasting relation: we should hear them when designing the solution (and energy offices are a good way to create trust and have a first approach), but also promote financial tools to support the households and the maintenance of the proposed solutions as well as promote the increase of their socio-economic situation.
🫠“Summer energy poverty” group
Caused by low household income, high energy bills, and low dwelling energy efficiency, energy poverty has traditionally been associated with the inability of households to meet their heating needs during winter. The Cooltorise project (H2020-funded) brings cooling needs and overheating risk into the energy poverty debate. The project aims to reduce summer energy poverty incidence among European households improving their indoor thermal habitability conditions and reducing their energy needs during the hot season, which will decrease their exposure to heat and heat-related health risks.Carmen Sanchez-Guevara from Cooltorise presented the project to the group and identified with participants the following policy gaps:
National level
- National definition of EP needed
- Include aids during summer time (e.g. social bonus)
Local level
- Training of social workers
- Set up climatic shelters
At national and local level
- Renovation of the most inefficient housing – improve sensitiveness towards EP –
- One-stop-shops
Session 2: Flopcast with great learnings
Do’s and don’ts in engagement and communication around energy poverty
- Listen first and then talk
- Engage with the local community
- Facilitate co-creation by involving a range of stakeholders
- Draw upon intermediaries to reach out to EP people
- Be open and be clear in why you’re supporting
Do’s and don’ts delivering actions on energy poverty
- There are different types of energy poverty:
- we should use different engaging and communication strategies (e.g. different approaches for elderly people, families, migrants, etc.)
- Link energy poverty with other topics that are relevant for the target group
- Miscommunication between different levels of the administration: multi-level governance including social workers, health professionals etc.
- Addressing the topic without the proper knowledge is problematic: country-specific studies can create a solid basis for action
- A regional adaptation of EU directives is missing: country-specific adaptations are needed
- Lack of education/awareness: use a proactive approach to increase awareness of the topic
- Create a network of actors
Do’s and don’ts in policy work around energy povert
- Policy-makers often don’t see energy poverty being within their area of responsibility:
- Show figures and graphs to make policy-makers understand the problem
- Find the right person to talk to at policy-level
- Capacity-building should be fostered by national governments
- Create empathy towards and within policy-makers
- Find partners/allies (NGOs, other cities…)
- Targeted and tailored support to energy poverty
- Making policies coherent amongst each otherRely on existing research, data
Challenges:
- Ask for more clarity from the national level
FURTHER READINGS:
- The latest Cooltorise policy brief
- The latest EU guidance on Energy Poverty recognising importance of POWER UP (published on October 23)
- Research paper “Who is vulnerable to energy poverty in the Global North, and what is their experience?”
