Tackle Energy Poverty Research Articles

Possibilities, Challenges, and Future Opportunities of Microgrids: A Review

Microgrids are an emerging technology that offers many benefits compared with traditional power grids, including increased reliability, reduced energy costs, improved energy security, environmental benefits, and increased flexibility. However, several challenges are associated with microgrid technology, including high capital costs, technical complexity, regulatory challenges, interconnection issues, maintenance, and operation requirements. Through an in-depth analysis of various research areas and technical aspects of microgrid development, this study aims to provide valuable insights into the strategies and technologies required to overcome these challenges. By assessing the current state of microgrid development in Pakistan and drawing lessons from international best practices, our research highlights the unique opportunities microgrids present for tackling energy poverty, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and promoting sustainable economic growth. Ultimately, this research article contributes to the growing knowledge of microgrids and their role in addressing global sustainability issues. It offers practical recommendations for policymakers, industry stakeholders, and local communities in Pakistan and beyond.

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.

Addressing energy poverty through technological and governance innovation

BackgroundEnergy poverty has gained much traction over the last decades, holding both high multidisciplinary conceptual value, but also profound implications from a social policy perspective, being closely linked to the quality of life and well-being. The goal of our study is to evaluate recent measures aimed at tackling energy poverty in Europe by analysing the extent to which they are innovative on technological and governance dimensions. We do so by building an analytical tool which combines evaluation criteria along these two dimensions and by employing it for the analysis of twenty measures aimed at tackling energy poverty that have been designed and employed in ten European countries. These measures were selected with the support of an expert panel.ResultsWe identify three categories of innovative measures aimed at alleviating energy poverty: (1) measures with high technological scores, (2) measures with high governance scores, and (3) measures with high scores on both axes. The measures in the third category incorporate a variety of actors in sustainable partnerships and implement monitoring tools throughout the process, complementary to incorporating new technologies into the domestic sphere and promoting consumer awareness and consumption pattern transformation.ConclusionsOur findings allow for a better perspective on the shape innovation takes in the context of energy poverty policies. Based on our research, we argue that combining technological innovation and governance innovation has a better chance of generating more articulate and scalable, and potentially successful measures with respect to their purpose of tackling energy poverty, since the drivers of energy poverty rarely pertain to only technology or only governance.

Opportunity, ideal or distraction? Exploring stakeholder perceptions of tackling energy poverty and vulnerability among older Australians

Energy vulnerability intersects with housing, social and health issues, yet current siloed approaches and piece-meal energy assistance initiatives are often leaving ‘hard to reach’ older householders behind. Cross-disciplinary strategies promise better identification of vulnerable people, sustained relief and scalable solutions, yet such innovative approaches are still rare. Using the Australian in-home aged care services as a case study, this research explored how stakeholders perceived the idea of integrating energy assistance with health services for people aged 65 and over. Understanding the views of potential advocates and adopters may guide the development, design and implementation of such an innovation.This study engaged front-line workers, executives and policy makers across organisations aiming at carbon emission reduction, equity and health. Climate action stakeholders and in-home aged care services staff recognised synergies across their programmes and welcomed the idea as an opportunity to address hidden energy poverty. Equity stakeholders perceived it as an ideal and doubted that its aspirations were likely to be fully realised given the priorities of vulnerable, older people. An aged care services industry representative, however, saw this proposition as a distraction from dealing with the broader challenges of an ageing population. These insights highlight the need to co-design such an initiative. The engagement of health policy makers is critical but challenging. Further research is needed to align energy assistance with the needs and circumstances of in-home aged care services clients and to develop solutions for older renters.

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.

A comprehensive urban programme to reduce energy poverty and its effects on health and wellbeing of citizens in six European countries: study protocol of a controlled trial

BackgroundNearly 11% of the European population is affected by energy poverty. Energy poverty is defined by the European Commission (2016) as the inability to afford basic energy services to guarantee a decent standard of living. Energy poverty is considered a complex, multidimensional problem that affects environment, housing, urban development, and health. Living in energy poverty conditions is associated with poorer human health and wellbeing. Hence, the WELLBASED intervention programme aims to design, implement and evaluate a comprehensive urban programme, based on the social-ecological model, to reduce energy poverty and its effects on the citizens’ health and wellbeing in six European urban study sites: Valencia, Spain; Heerlen, The Netherlands; Leeds, United Kingdom; Edirne, Turkey; Obuda, Hungary, and; Jelgava, Latvia.MethodsA controlled trial is performed. A total of 875 participants are recruited (125–177 per study site) to receive the WELLBASED intervention programme for 12 months (intervention condition) and 875 participants act as controls (control condition). Data will be collected with a baseline measurement at inclusion (T0), and follow-up measurements after 6 months (T1), 12 months (T2), and 18 months (T3). In both study arms, effects of the WELLBASED intervention programme are measured: health-related quality of life (HR-QoL), mental health, frailty in older adults, self-perceived health, chronic conditions, and care utilization. At the same time points, household expenditure on energy and energy consumption are obtained. In the intervention arm, health-monitoring data (i.e. peak flow, oxygen saturation, blood pressure, and heart rate) are obtained monthly and sleep quality with a three-month interval. Household data with regard to temperature, humidity and air quality are collected near real-time by home sensors. Qualitative interviews are conducted in each study site to evaluate the impacts of the WELLBASED intervention programme and to help explain findings.DiscussionThe WELLBASED intervention programme will provide new insights into the effectiveness of a comprehensive urban programme to tackle energy poverty and its effects on health and wellbeing across Europe. Hence, this study can contribute to European-wide replicable solutions for policy-makers and city practitioners to alleviate energy poverty.Trial registrationISRCTN registry number is ISRCTN14905838. Date of registration is 15/02/2022.

Guest Editorial Special Issue on Emerging Applications of Power Electronics in Developing Economies

Three billion people around the world live in severe energy poverty, including 1.1 billion who live completely off-grid. Providing affordable energy access to them can dramatically impact their living standard, health, education, productivity, and ability to be a part of modern society. In developing economies, the utilization of energy is also limited to some extent. Many programs and initiatives (e.g., the IEEE Empower a Billion Lives and the IEEE Smart Village) have been doing stellar work in tackling energy poverty in developing economies. However, much remains to be done to crowdsource relevant innovation to accelerate the deployment of energy access solutions in the affected areas, including the developing economies. According to the previous programs and initiatives, it has been identified that power electronics is one of the key technologies to address real-life issues in energy access and utilization, water supply, rural transportation, etc., for developing economies. In this context, it calls for innovative and scalable solutions that should be for emerging applications of power electronics with an emphasis on technical innovation and business viability to rapidly and sustainably scale to a wide range of customers in developing economies. Hence, we organized this Special Issue on <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Emerging Applications of Power Electronics in Developing Economies</i> , aiming to bring together researchers, experts, policy makers, and stakeholders to tackle energy poverty issues in developing economies.

Predicting energy poverty in Greece through statistical data analysis

ABSTRACT A comprehensive statistical analysis of energy poverty indicators is undertaken in the present paper, in an attempt to further understand the roots and results of the problem in Greece. Specifically, time-series data sets were analysed using various objective indicators, i.e. 10%, 2M, 2M EXP, M/2, M/2 EXP, as well as subjective indicators. Chi-square tests of Independence were performed and binary logistic regression models were developed to predict energy poverty (indicators of 10%, 2M and M/2), based on critical socio-economic factors. The logit model based on the 10% indicator presented the highest performance, reaching 32%. According to this model, the types of households mostly exposed to energy poverty were single families with dependent children and households located in Macedonia, increasing the relative probability of energy poverty by 7.0 and 6.5 times per unit, respectively. The outcomes derived can help policy-makers towards designing more targeted policies for tackling energy poverty in Greece.

Will Plans to Ease Energy Poverty Go Up in Smoke? Assessing the Hungarian NECP through the Lens of Solid Fuel Users’ Vulnerabilities

Hungary has one of the highest incidences of energy poverty in the European Union, and a high share of Hungarian low-income households rely on solid fuels. This paper first maps the energy vulnerabilities of Hungarian solid fuel users using six energy vulnerability factors. The mapping underlines that solid fuel users are more exposed to energy vulnerability than average households. This is followed by an analysis of energy-poverty-related objectives and measures outlined in the Hungarian National Energy and Climate Plan (NECP), a key policy document of the green energy transition. The paper outlines that the NECP fails to comply with the requirement of setting energy poverty alleviation objectives. Furthermore, the outlined energy-poverty-related policies and measures fail to provide systematic solutions to energy-poverty drivers, especially those solid fuel users’ vulnerabilities. Hungary’s general antiegalitarian policy environment and the weak design of energy poverty measures in the NECP suggest severe deficiency regarding a just energy transition guarantee. A just energy transition in Hungary is therefore endangered by the fact that EU energy poverty alleviation requirements fall under soft-law coordination mechanisms that make such requirements hardly enforceable in a member state with an antipoor policy bias that is reluctant to tackle energy poverty.

Catalyzing International Climate Finance: Tackling Energy Poverty in Nigeria

Despite the abundance of energy sources that Nigeria has, the population is still experiencing energy poverty. Access to clean and reliable energy is critical for sustainable economic development and the wellbeing of Nigerians. With the global low-carbon energy transition currently underway, the issue of energy poverty must be tackled by the international community. The community must make a concerted effort to mobilize international capital flows towards sustainable energy development projects. The purpose of this paper is to analyze key climate finance instruments and how they can improve access to energy and contribute to sustainable development in Nigeria.

Tackling Energy Poverty through Collective Advisory Assemblies and Electricity and Comfort Monitoring Campaigns

The present work aims to describe and analyze the results of the interventions carried out in the Barcelona pilot site of the EmpowerMed project. The overall objective of EmpowerMed is to tackle energy poverty and to help improve the health of people in coastal areas of Mediterranean countries, with a particular focus on women. The main support approach implemented in Barcelona is Collective Advisory Assemblies (CAA), in the framework of Alliance against Energy Poverty. CAA is an innovative, collaborative empowering engagement tool that offers an alternative to the more traditional one-off individual household advice and support approaches. CAAs take place together with a monitoring campaign where: electricity consumption is analyzed to optimize the supply contracts, and indoor environmental comfort to provide recommendations for wellbeing improvement. Through the different approaches, a characterization of the people that have participated in the Barcelona pilot site was completed, from a socioeconomic, energy, thermal comfort and air quality perspective. Additionally, it was compared with a group of energy poverty non-affected households, which are involved in the monitoring campaign. Finally, the impact was quantified in terms of empowerment of energy poverty population and, potential economic savings.

Tackling energy poverty through social intrapreneurship in large-scale energy companies

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to present advances towards a social intrapreneurship department within energy corporations. By drawing on the literature on social intrapreneurship and stakeholder theory, this paper provides a conceptual proposal for an organisational structure. This paper builds on the notion of bridging and boundary organisations, to suggest an organisational innovative structure as a social intrapreneurship endeavour focussing on the increasing salience of weak stakeholders in energy corporations from the energy justice approach.Design/methodology/approachThis paper draws on the literatures on social intrapreneurship and stakeholder theory, to provide arguments and an organisational proposal to alleviate energy poverty in energy corporations.FindingsThe results are presented in a conceptual process model for the development of Social Energy Department units within large energy companies, illustrating their embeddedness in both societal and company-level processes to facilitate social intrapreneurship initiatives that would alleviate energy poverty in the just transition.Practical implicationsThe paper promises novel insights at the nexus of social enterprise and organisational change. The practical applicability is particularly promising, as it focusses on integrating novel units in energy companies and stimulates further research on models of social intrapreneurship to tackle energy poverty.Originality/valueThe paper offers both practical and theoretical contributions to the stakeholder theory field with insights from social intrapreneurship and organisational stakeholder theory in the context of a specific social problem – energy poverty, energy justice and the just energy transition.

The role of one-stop shops in energy renovation - a comparative analysis of OSSs cases in Europe

With energy transition setting the ground for innovation and new ways of conducting business, one-stop shops (OSSs) have recently gained momentum in the renovation market. By transforming a complex set of multiple-actor decisions into a single entry and customer-centric service, OSSs have the potential of establishing a bridge between the fragmented demand and supply sides of the traditional renovation value chain. To assess the viability of the OSSs model as a vehicle of accelerating decarbonisation efforts in the European building stock, this paper collects and analyses 63 case studies of OSSs across Europe. The study offers insights into the dynamics of their business model, key benefits and ways forward, by explicitly exploring OSSs’ role in incentivising homeowners to decide to renovate. Our findings show that OSSs can be instrumental in addressing the multitude of barriers that prevent homeowners to renovate. With around 100,000 OSSs projects per year, their activity is expected to substantially contribute to the European renovation targets to rise, subject to favourable policy framework, availability of affordable financing solutions and experience sharing within and across countries. With some OSSs already supporting vulnerable households to renovate, OSSs might be well-placed in the future to contribute to tackle energy poverty by assisting in accessing financing and engaging property owners to renovate.

Operational Planning of Energy for Non-Interconnected Zones: A Simulation-Optimization Approach and a Case Study to Tackle Energy Poverty in Colombia

There is a need to look for alternative sources of renewable energy, especially in zones where people continue to live under energy poverty conditions. Consequently, to enhance the performance of energy systems, algorithms to support planning decisions are required. This article proposes a simulation-optimization framework to solve the stochastic version of the integrated energy dispatch and unit commitment problem for a solar radiation system operating in non-interconnected zones. Our study was motivated by challenges faced by a rural school located in Cundinamarca, Colombia. Particularly, a simulation with optimization-based iterations approach is used, modeling solar radiation as a random variable. The optimization phase uses a heuristic procedure that enables good solutions to be found in short computational times. To test our method, computational experiments were conducted using a set of randomly generated cases. The results suggest that our approach is useful and able to handle the random nature of the process for the school “Volcanes”. Additionally, we were able to quantify the impact that using a deterministic approach has on service levels for such systems. The novelty of the article lies in the proposed method and its application to a rural school with a low-budget system.

Positive Energy District: A Model for Historic Districts to Address Energy Poverty

The Positive Energy District (PED) concept has been pointed out as key for cities' energy system transformation toward carbon neutrality. The PED may be defined as an energy-efficient and flexible urban area with net-zero energy import and greenhouse gas emissions, aiming toward annual local surplus of renewable energy. Most of the studies and practical experiences about PEDs are based on newly built districts, where the planning and integration of innovative solutions are less complex and more cost-effective. However, to achieve Europe Union's 2050 carbon-neutral ambition, we argue that the transformation of the settled districts is essential, including historic districts, which present common challenges across European cities, such as degraded dwellings, low-income families, and gentrification processes due to massive tourism flows. This paper aims to discuss how the PED model can be an opportunity for historic districts to reduce their emissions and mitigate energy poverty. The historic district of Alfama, in the city of Lisbon (Portugal), is used as a case study to show the potential of energy renovation measures and solar PV production in households, cornerstones of a PED. The annual energy needs potential reduction due to building retrofit is 84 and 19% for space heating and cooling, respectively, while the integration of building-integrated PV technologies in rooftops and windows potentially generates up to 60 GWh/year. At the district scale, these two components of the PED concept could require an investment of 60M€ to 81M€ depending on the PV technologies in the rooftops, a sensitive aspect in historical districts. Unlike other mechanisms to tackle energy poverty, like the social tariffs, the adoption of structural measures like building energy efficiency retrofit and renewable energy integration will contribute to solve the energy poverty problem, which is significant in Alfama, in both the winter and summer. The highlighted investments require an innovative financial scheme to support not only buildings' owners but also tenants, as these are among the most vulnerable to energy poverty. However, the social benefits of that investment, on the health system, air quality, climate resilience, labor productivity, and social integration, would be invaluable.

Fighting Energy Poverty Using User-Driven Approaches in Mountainous Greece: Lessons Learnt from a Living Lab

The experience of operating an energy-related Living Lab (LL) in mountainous Greece is presented in this paper in an attempt to explore the dynamics of such initiatives to address energy vulnerability. The LL is situated in Metsovo, which is a typical mountainous town of Greece with increased vulnerability issues identified in previous studies. Since Greek mountainous societies have proved to be particularly exposed to energy poverty, the LL aimed to function as an exemplary case on how to tackle energy poverty issues in mountainous regions, mainly through reducing energy consumption and improving energy efficiency. The methodological context was based on a holistic LL approach consisting of various activities, such as conduction of energy cafés, questionnaire surveys, home visits from Energy Advisors, installation of monitoring equipment, ICT tools and processing, etc. In particular, the LL consisted of three independent rounds, each of which involved 50 households, with 30 of them being equipped with monitoring tools. Energy advisors repeatedly visited households to collect information (on heating expenses, behavioral aspects, etc.) and offer household-specific advice on potential energy savings measures. Overall, the LL operation proved to have benefited most participants (76%), especially households with monitoring equipment, as 85.5% of the last ones already applied energy-efficiency measures and 80% made further plans for future investments. Through the particular LL example, apart from the benefits delivered to the local society, useful information can be provided to policy-makers toward addressing more effectively energy vulnerability in mountainous societies.

Prediction of Fuel Poverty Potential Risk Index Using Six Regression Algorithms: A Case-Study of Chilean Social Dwellings

In recent times, studies about the accuracy of algorithms to predict different aspects of energy use in the building sector have flourished, being energy poverty one of the issues that has received considerable critical attention. Previous studies in this field have characterized it using different indicators, but they have failed to develop instruments to predict the risk of low-income households falling into energy poverty. This research explores the way in which six regression algorithms can accurately forecast the risk of energy poverty by means of the fuel poverty potential risk index. Using data from the national survey of socioeconomic conditions of Chilean households and generating data for different typologies of social dwellings (e.g., form ratio or roof surface area), this study simulated 38,880 cases and compared the accuracy of six algorithms. Multilayer perceptron, M5P and support vector regression delivered the best accuracy, with correlation coefficients over 99.5%. In terms of computing time, M5P outperforms the rest. Although these results suggest that energy poverty can be accurately predicted using simulated data, it remains necessary to test the algorithms against real data. These results can be useful in devising policies to tackle energy poverty in advance.

Tackling Energy Poverty Through Behavioral Change: A Pilot Study on Social Comparison Interventions in Social Housing Districts

Behavioral Economics has in recent years played a key role in informing the design of non-price interventions aimed at promoting energy conservation behaviors in residential housing. Some of the most influential contributions of the discipline in an applied setting have centered around the development of norm-based interventions. The success that these interventions have had in specific contexts presents an opportunity to exploit them as tools for tackling a prevalent type of poverty at the EU level: energy poverty. Recent contributions to the literature highlight the role of inefficient energy behavior as a significant driver of this particular type of poverty, which is characterized by an inability to afford the basic energy services necessary to guarantee a decent standard of living. Therefore, the effectiveness of norm-based interventions in vulnerable populations merits further investigation to determine whether this approach can suitably address the behavioral components of energy poverty by promoting efficient energy consumption and conservation efforts. This study reports on a pilot conducted in an exemplary social housing context (located in Bolzano, Italy) with the aim to assess the effectiveness of social comparison interventions in energy vulnerable groups. Our investigated cohort covers an initial small sample of apartments with a large representatives of elderly individuals and other energy-vulnerable groups. Using a design that combines appeals to injunctive and descriptive norms embedded within In-Home Devices (IHD) in recently retrofitted homes, our objective is to set a basis for the assessment of effectiveness of these types of interventions in social housing populations. Our study seeks to provide useful methodological insights to policy makers on how to effectively design behaviorally informed interventions aimed at tackling energy poverty. Despite the current data limitations, our results do seem to suggest that uniformly applied norm-based interventions may have potentially backfiring effects in small-scale implementations. Therefore, they suggest that attention needs to be paid to household composition and pre-existing levels of consumption, when designing behavior-change interventions in these groups.JEL Classification: C93; D03; D04; D12; D19; D91; Q40.

Energy poverty, its intensity and health in vulnerable populations in a Southern European city

ObjectiveTo describe and compare the health status between vulnerable population participating in a program to tackle energy poverty (Energía, la justa) and the non-energy poor Barcelona (Spain) population and to analyse among participants the effect of energy poverty intensity on health. MethodCross-sectional study based on data from program participants obtained before the intervention. Participants (1799 women and 671 men) were compared to non-energy poor population of Barcelona (1393 women and 1215 men) sampled from the Barcelona Public Health Survey (2016). Standardized prevalence and prevalence ratios of self-perceived poor health, asthma, chronic bronchitis, and depression and/or anxiety were estimated, and among participants the association between health status and energy poverty intensity was estimated with multivariate models. ResultsThe probability of poor self-perceived physical and mental health ranged from 2.2 to 5.3 times greater in the program participants than non-energy poor Barcelona population. Among program participants, those most affected were found to be the most likely to report poor health outcomes, regardless of other sociodemographic factors. ConclusionsThe prevalence of poor physical and mental health was considerably higher among women and men participating in the programme compared to the non-energy poor population and was even worse among those who were more severely affected. Public policies that tackle energy poverty and its consequences are urgently needed in Spain.

Design and Installation of 500-kW Floating Photovoltaic Structures Using High-Durability Steel

Countries around the world are expanding their investment in the new and renewable energy industry for strengthening energy security, improving air pollution, responding to climate change, and tackling energy poverty. In Korea, with the nuclear phase-out declaration in 2017, the government has announced a policy to expand the ratio of new and renewable energy from 4.7% to 20% by 2030. This study examines a floating photovoltaic power generation system, which is a new and renewable energy source. A structure composed of high-durability steel with excellent corrosion resistance and durability was designed for constructing and installing a 500-kW-class floating photovoltaic power generation structure. In addition, the safety of the structure was verified through finite element analysis. By reviewing the safety of the structure with respect to the wave height, the behavior of the structure was confirmed through the design wave height formula proposed in the domestic standard. The verification result confirms that the stress is within the allowable design limit. Moreover, the energy production of the floating photovoltaic generation system was measured and compared with that of a terrestrial photovoltaic generation system, and that of the former was shown to be 10% higher than that of the latter.