Level Of Energy Services Research Articles

Household energy resilience in extreme weather events: An investigation of energy service importance, HVAC usage behaviors, and willingness to pay

Household energy resilience, particularly maintaining essential energy services within an acceptable and affordable level, is critical during extreme weather events (e.g., winter storms, heat waves) with power shortages or outages. However, the research on the importance and acceptable compromise levels of energy services, HVAC usage behavior changes, and willingness to pay (WTP) for energy services during disasters is limited. Therefore, this study investigates the importance and compromise of household energy services, HVAC usage behaviors, and WTP, as three key dimensions of household energy resilience, in both normal days and disaster scenarios through surveys (n = 485). First, 12 common residential end-uses are grouped into high, mid, and low-priority services using hierarchical clustering, in which high-priority services (perceived as important and un-compromisable) include food cooking and storage (refrigerator and freezer) and thermal comfort (space heating and cooling), mid-priority services involve water heating and lighting, while low-priority services are mostly related to entertainment and housework (e.g., TV, laundry). Also, HVAC use patterns demonstrate that occupants become more energy conservative during disasters, e.g., reducing durations of running HVAC and adjusting temperature setpoints to save energy. In terms of energy cost, approximately 60% of respondents are willing to pay more to maintain energy services during disasters, although only 13% are prepared to pay over double the normal energy prices. The regression models further reveal that household energy resilience varies across different socio-demographic groups (e.g., age, income, family size) and is impacted by disaster experience and beliefs in clean energy and climate. These research findings provide important perspectives to understand household energy resilience and inform measures for disaster adaptation of households in extreme weather events.

Energy Demand Reduction: supply chains and risk analysis

Demand Reduction is a strategy with the potential to make a significant contribution to the energy supply/demand balance. Its two major themes are improving the energy efficiency of devices (appliances and processes) and changing people’s behaviour towards using less energy. In our analysis of a nation’s energy security, we treat Demand Reduction as an additional fuel which delivers ‘negafuel’, allowing a particular level of energy services to be met at a lower volume of supply than would be possible in its absence. In common with other fuels, negafuel is delivered by a supply chain with linked stages, all encountering risks of various types. A comprehensive survey of these risks in a case study of the UK shows that Demand Reduction belongs to a middle-ranking group of fuels in terms of overall risk. High-level risks encountered include the difficulty of assessing and delivering potential energy savings, the rate of building construction at the highest energy efficiency standards, optimism bias, changing policy and regulation, and operational failure (both of technology and policy). Assessing the risk of Demand Reduction as a supplied negafuel focuses attention on specific risks requiring mitigation, facilitating design of better policy, and more effective commercial products.

Energy poverty: an overlooked determinant of health and climate resilience in Canada

ObjectiveDespite Canada being an important energy producer, not all Canadians can access or afford adequate levels of energy services at home to meet their needs, maintain healthy indoor temperatures, and live a decent life—a situation known as energy poverty. Depending on the measure, 6–19% of Canadian households face energy poverty. Health risks associated with energy poverty are documented in countries with milder climates. This study explores, for the first time in the Canadian context, the association between energy poverty and health.MethodsCross-sectional data are from the 2018 Canadian Housing Survey. Analyses are conducted on a sample weighted to represent 14 million Canadian households. The associations between expenditure-based and self-reported measures of energy poverty and self-rated general and mental health were assessed using logistic regression models, adjusted for potential confounding variables.ResultsThe odds of rating one’s general (OR: 1.48; 95%CI: 1.29, 1.70) and mental (OR: 1.21; 1.04, 1.41) health as poor are significantly higher for Canadian adults in households with a high share of energy expenditure to income. The likelihood of poor general and mental health was significantly higher for those dissatisfied with the energy efficiency of their dwelling, and with their ability to maintain a comfortable temperature both in the winter and in the summer.ConclusionExposure to energy poverty is associated with significantly increased likelihood of poor general and mental health. Given the high proportion of Canadian households facing energy poverty, with demonstrated implications for population health, tackling energy poverty is essential for an equitable energy transition and for climate resilience.

How to improve energy efficiency policies to address energy poverty? Literature and stakeholder insights for private rented housing in Europe

Households in the private rented sector (i.e., households renting properties at a market rate from a private landlord), and especially those of lower income, face far more energy poverty issues than the general population, meaning that they are often unable to afford socially and materially required levels of energy services. In this context, energy efficiency policies are of the outmost importance as they can improve households' living conditions and contribute to the alleviation of energy poverty. Nevertheless, when it comes to the private rented sector across Europe, implementing such policies is hindered by several barriers. Our article sheds light on structural factors that serve as barriers to, and solutions for, the implementation of energy efficiency policies in the private rented sector across Europe. Our approach is twofold: first, an in-depth desk research is performed to identify financial, social, political/regulatory, and technical barriers and solutions. Literature findings are then supplemented and validated by a European-wide survey, eliciting knowledge embedded in 64 relevant stakeholders and field experts. Our findings indicate that although financial barriers are always of the essence, a holistic assessment of barriers is required, as there is a lack of awareness about policies that could improve tenants' living conditions. They also provide possible solutions that governmental bodies at all levels and other organisations could implement to improve energy efficiency and tackle energy poverty. Overall, our work suggests key implications, which, if acted upon, could accelerate the deployment of energy efficiency policies in the private rented sector across Europe.

Injustices at the air–energy nexus

This article maps the socio-technical interconnections between atmospheric systems, on the one hand, and the infrastructural networks associated with the extraction, production, transport and consumption of energy resources, on the other hand. The exchanges, interdependencies and injustices that arise at this interface can broadly be understood as the ‘air–energy nexus’. Despite energy inequalities almost always being entangled with some form of atmospheric injustice, their intersection has rarely been articulated to date. With the aid of a critical literature review, we focus on the domestic air–energy nexus to explore the ability of air to act as a social and physical agent of deprivation and injustice in the case of energy vulnerability: a condition characterized by a household’s propensity to secure adequate levels of energy services in the home. We argue that an integrated and critical perspective on the air–energy nexus challenges existing understandings of the quality and nature of domestic energy and atmospheric services, such as space heating and cooling. We propose future research and policy directions focused on addressing energy vulnerability in the home by embracing the unruly and fluid character of air–energy interactions, and transcending the socio-material boundaries between indoor and outdoor environments.

Energy poverty and income inequality: An economic analysis of 37 countries

Identifying those who are vulnerable to energy poverty is important to sustainable development, for which vulnerability is known as the inability to access an adequate level of energy services in the home. Although many studies have investigated the determinants of energy poverty at the household level, none has examined how these determinants can change according to a country’s economic situation. We use original survey data of 37 countries at various economic levels to address this issue by creating objective and subjective indicators in three dimensions: accessibility, reliability, and affordability. We employ a three-level hierarchical model to investigate how a country’s economic development level and income inequality, as well as household-level socioeconomic factors, affect households’ energy poverty. We find that energy poverty for country-average households shows an improving trend with economic development in the accessibility and reliability dimensions, while affordability is the worst in countries with a middle level of economic development and greater income inequality. Although it is well known that low household income is linked to worse energy poverty in affordability dimension, our findings add new insight that a higher economic development level and larger income inequality are the most relevant factors in the strong negative association, not climate conditions. We reveal that in addition to country-level factors, several household-level socioeconomic factors are associated with energy poverty in different ways depending on the dimension, which implies that customized criteria are necessary to define vulnerable households in each dimension.

Fuel poverty and financial distress

Governments and advocacy groups have drawn attention to the precarious position of those members of society who are unable to attain an adequate level of energy services, i.e. the fuel poor. Concerns have also arisen about the ability of fuel poor individuals to adapt to the hardship recently brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper contributes to the literature by exploring empirically the link between fuel poverty and financial distress prior to and during the first wave the COVID-19 pandemic. The analysis is based on the most recent longitudinal, nationally representative survey of the United Kingdom, Understanding Society (UKHLS, Wave 10, January 2018–February 2020). After correcting for the effects of potential endogeneity in the variables of interest, our results identify a statistically robust relationship between fuel poverty indicators and self-reported measures of current financial distress, with stronger effects for subjective indicators. The fuel poverty indicators however exert only a limited influence on an individual's expectation of their future financial situation. Our analysis of the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic also confirms that fuel poverty contributed to financial distress. Our main findings are robust to a suite of specification and sensitivity checks. Our results lead to recommend assessing measures which target fuel poverty on the basis of their potential indirect effect on financial distress.

Research on the interconnection and rapid deployment of smart energy service platforms under multi-factor game balance

This paper firstly models the relationship between power companies, photovoltaic power generation, wind power generation networks, and users as a three-stage Steinberg game. In this game model, the power company is the dominant player and the leader of the entire game. Secondly, with the game model, a detailed analysis is carried out to obtain the optimal strategy of each game party. Finally, the simplified model was simulated and verified. The simulation result is consistent with the theoretical solution result. The research results of this paper have improved the level of energy services and innovated energy service models.

The association of energy poverty with health, health care utilisation and medication use in southern Europe.

Energy poverty (EP) is defined as the inability of a household to secure a socially and materially required level of energy services in the home. The main objective of this study was to analyse the association between EP and distinct indicators of health status, health services utilisation and medication use in southern Europe, using the city of Barcelona as a case study.We conducted a cross-sectional study using the data of the Barcelona Health Survey for 2016 (n = 3519, 53.3% women). We calculated EP percentages according to age, country of birth and social class. We analysed the association between EP and 26 health-related indicators through prevalence ratios (PR), and quantified the impact of EP on health at the population level by calculating the percentage of population attributable risk (PAR%).In Barcelona, 13.3% of women and 11.3% of men experienced EP. The most frequently affected groups were people born in low- and middle-income countries, those from more disadvantaged social classes, and women aged 65 years and older. We found a strong association between EP and worse health status, as well as higher use of health services and medication. For example, compared with women without EP, those with EP reported poor mental health 1.9 (95% CI: 1.6–2.4) times more frequently. Compared with men without EP, those with EP reported poor mental health 2.1 (95% CI: 1.6–2.8) times more frequently. The combination of high EP prevalence and the strong association between EP and negative health outcomes resulted in high PAR%, indicating the striking impact of EP on health and health services at the population level.EP is an important public health problem in southern European urban contexts that should be included in policy priorities in order to address its structural causes and minimise its unfair and avoidable health effects.

Everyday politics of austerity: Infrastructure and vulnerability in times of crisis

Growing numbers of households in Greece are unable to secure adequate levels of energy services in the home – a condition generally known as energy poverty. This situation can largely be attributed...

The socio-demographic dimensions of energy poverty: a case study from Bytom, Poland

Abstract Energy poverty can be understood as the inability to secure a socially- and materially-necessitated level of energy services in the home. This article presents the results of empirical research on energy poverty in Bytom. The study was carried out using a questionnaire delivered to 121 persons living in Bytom. The questionnaire consisted of 20 single and multiple-choice questions. The primary aim of the research was to achieve typological representativeness by identifying the differences between six age categories. Some of the results confirm what is already known about the relationships between the age of the head of household and energy poverty, while others are surprising. On their basis it is possible to formulate some recommendations for local anti-poverty energy policies.

Transient and persistent energy efficiency in the US residential sector: evidence from household-level data

In this paper, we measure the energy efficiency implicit in residential energy consumption using a panel dataset comprised of 40,246 observations from US households observed over 1997–2009. We fit a stochastic frontier model of the minimum input of energy needed to meet the level of energy services demanded by the household. This benchmarking exercise produces a transient and a persistent efficiency index for each household and each time period. We estimate that the US residential sector could save approximately 10% of its total energy consumption if it reduced persistent inefficiencies and 17% if it were possible to eliminate transient inefficiencies. These figures are in line with recent economy-wide assessments for the USA. Our results suggest that savings in energy use and associated emissions of greenhouse gases may benefit from both policy measures that attain short-run behavioral changes (e.g., nudges, social norms, display of real-time information about usage, and real-time pricing) as well measures aimed at the long run, such as energy-efficiency regulations, incentives on the purchase of high-efficiency equipment, and incentives towards a change of habits in the use of the equipment.

Energy Efficiency and Emissions Intensity Standards

AbstractWe investigate the role of energy efficiency in rate-based emissions intensity standards, a particularly policy-relevant consideration given that the Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Power Plan allows crediting of electricity savings as a means of complying with state-specific emissions standards. We show that with perfectly inelastic energy services demand, crediting efficiency measures can recover the first-best allocation. However, when demand for energy services exhibits some elasticity, crediting energy efficiency can no longer recover first-best. While crediting removes the relative distortion between energy generation and energy efficiency, it distorts the absolute level of energy services. Building on these results, we derive the conditions determining the second-best intensity standard and crediting rule. Simulations calibrated to the electricity sector in Texas find that while some form of crediting is generally welfare-improving, the proposed one-for-one crediting of energy savin...

Encountering energy precarity: Geographies of fuel poverty among young adults in the UK.

This paper develops the notion of “energy precarity” in order to uncover the governance practices and material conditions that drive and reproduce the inability of households to secure socially‐ and materially‐necessitated levels of energy services in the home. The overarching aim is to foreground a geographical approach towards the study of domestic energy deprivation, by emphasizing the complex socio‐spatial and material embeddedness of fuel poverty. The paper operationalizes these ideas via a field‐based study of a group that has received limited attention in research and policy on fuel poverty: young adults living in privately rented accommodation. In evoking the experiences of such individuals, I employ energy precarity as a means of unpacking the spaces where energy deprivation is produced, experienced and contested. Among other findings, I highlight that people's fluid lifestyles and specific end‐use energy demand patterns mean that energy deprivation metaphorically and physically overflows the limits of home, creating multiple performativities of precarity that have received very little attention to date.

Health, Well-Being and Energy Poverty in Europe: A Comparative Study of 32 European Countries.

Despite growing pan-European interest in and awareness of the wide-ranging health and well-being impacts of energy poverty—which is characterised by an inability to secure adequate levels of energy services in the home—the knowledge base is largely British-centric and dominated by single-country studies. In response, this paper investigates the relationship between energy poverty, health and well-being across 32 European countries, using 2012 data from the European Quality of Life Survey. We find an uneven concentration of energy poverty, poor health, and poor well-being across Europe, with Eastern and Central Europe worst affected. At the intersection of energy poverty and health, there is a higher incidence of poor health (both physical and mental) amongst the energy poor populations of most countries, compared to non-energy poor households. Interestingly, we find the largest disparities in health and well-being levels between energy poor and non-energy poor households occur within relatively equal societies, such as Sweden and Slovenia. As well as the unique challenges brought about by rapidly changing energy landscapes in these countries, we also suggest the relative deprivation theory and processes of social comparison hold some value in explaining these findings.

Rethinking the measurement of energy poverty in Europe: A critical analysis of indicators and data.

Energy poverty – which has also been recognised via terms such as ‘fuel poverty’ and ‘energy vulnerability’ – occurs when a household experiences inadequate levels of energy services in the home. Measuring energy poverty is challenging, as it is a culturally sensitive and private condition, which is temporally and spatially dynamic. This is compounded by the limited availability of appropriate data and indicators, and lack of consensus on how energy poverty should be conceptualised and measured. Statistical indicators of energy poverty are an important and necessary part of the research and policy landscape. They carry great political weight, and are often used to guide the targeting of energy poverty measures – due to their perceived objectivity – with important consequences for both the indoor and built environment of housing. Focussing on the European Union specifically, this paper critically assesses the available statistical options for monitoring energy poverty, whilst also presenting options for improving existing data. This is examined through the lens of vulnerability thinking, by considering the ways in which policies and institutions, the built fabric and everyday practices shape energy use, alongside the manner in which energy poor households experience and address the issue on a day-to-day basis.

Domestic energy deprivation in Greece: A field study

Energy poverty can be understood as the inability of a household to secure socially and materially the necessitated level of energy services in the home. This condition is described as either energy or fuel poverty and it has been recognized by the EU's so called “Third Energy Package”.The work in this field has identified a number of household-level factors that influence the likelihood of experiencing domestic deprivation, with particular emphasis being placed on understanding how education levels correlates to the phenomenon. In that perspective, and in order to study the dynamics of energy poverty in Greece, a questionnaire was prepared and distributed mainly by means of in-situ interviews and, in exceptional cases, in remote sessions. The evidence presented in this paper is based on a comprehensive study of 762 questionnaires mainly for Western Macedonia (43.6%) and Central Macedonia (42.6%), Greece. Using the quantitative data gathered, we measure the energy vulnerability concerning the quality of the housing–dwelling, the heating system, indoor thermal comfort and the net-income.The research is, to our knowledge, the first attempt to analyze residential energy, habitants’ behavior, and attitudes in the middle of the economic crisis in North Greece. It has been determined, that the middle class has become the most vulnerable class in that sense. A further scope of this paper is not only to present this data, which prove that domestic energy deprivation appears not only in Southern but also in Northern Greece, but also to discuss measures that can be adopted in order mitigate energy and social vulnerability of the middle class.

Residential Heating under Energy Poverty Conditions: A Field Study

Energy poverty implies the situation of a household not able to satisfy the required levels of energy services in the house. Nowadays, it became an increasingly pressing problem even in the wealthier EU member states. Factors that play a major role in this development involve the complex interplay or rising energy prices, stagnant or decreasing incomes, high levels or unemployment and the slow rate of redevelopment for improving energy efficiency in residential buildings. It is therefore not surprising that official statistics show that nearly 17% of the EU-28 population is at risk of income poverty, 9.9% constitutes a material deprivation risk and around 23% of the population is considered to be at risk of poverty or social exclusion.The specific study aims to investigate energy poverty and its effect in Central Makedonia, in northern Greece, where the climate is harsher and heating requirements significantly higher than in the other parts of the country. A questionnaire aiming to assess energy poverty in low income urban areas was used. The questionnaire followed the example of a number of different studies that have dealt with the energy consumption of households and its correlation with various socio-economic parameters for various countries worldwide. In these studies the main parameters that were considered were the average household size, their income and the thermal characteristics of the building. A sample was collected after interviewing residents in order to assess the impact on the quality of life, energy consumption and heath of urban residents.The paper hence describes this situation and presents the research results that shows a disability to satisfy socially and materially the required levels of energy services.

A critical analysis of the new politics of fuel poverty in England

A household is fuel poor when it is unable to afford the level of energy services required to allow its members to live a decent life. From 2010 to 2015, the UK government transformed the politics of fuel poverty, with a new definition (‘Low income, high costs’ or LIHC), indicators and targets. Using a subjectivity framework to analyse the government documentation around LIHC, I find that: a distinction between poverty and fuel poverty is reinforced by the new politics, resulting in energy efficiency measures being prioritised as the appropriate solution. The austerity maxim of ‘helping those most in need’ is threaded through this new politics, belying an acceptance that not all fuel poverty can be alleviated. Further, LIHC underplays the role of changing energy costs, which now have no impact on the headline indicator. I argue that this new politics is symbolic, and unlikely to have positive impacts for most fuel poor households.

The energy divide: Integrating energy transitions, regional inequalities and poverty trends in the European Union.

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.