20210430 ENGAGER TS2 module 5
Channel: GET-together seminars
Date: 2021-05-03

ENGAGER Training School 2: Mainstreaming Innovative Energy Poverty Metrics (http://www.engager-energy.net/trainingschool2/)

Module 5: EP indicators, policy impact and hidden energy poverty

Trainers: Raúl Castaño-Rosa, Sergio Tirado Herrero

Following the legislative mandate of Directive 2019/944, EU member states have put in place monitoring and reporting frameworks that contribute to a better recognition of energy poverty. These metrics emphasise indoor thermal discomfort, low incomes and high energy bills, which are symptoms rather than root causes of domestic energy deprivation. Institutional recognition through indicators, however, comes at the expense of hidden aspects (seldom recognised in the scientific literature but even less so in policy practice) of the lived experience of energy poverty, such as household indebtedness, disconnections and precarious, informal or irregular connections. In this vein, the Spain hub aims to critically examine existing institutional indicators and to discuss new metrics for better civic engagement and policy-making. The hub module relies on ongoing work of the host institution (UC3M) in the Energy Poverty Intelligence Unit (EPIU) and the Cañada Real Galiana projects. Both projects seek to identify hidden energy poverty and establish an innovative support mechanism for vulnerable households in Spain’s Madrid region.

0-59:00 Short lectures by trainers from the host hub followed by plenary discussion

From invisibility to recognition: the challenge of hidden energy poverty - Sergio Tirado Herrero
Listening to the invisible energy groups through four Spanish cases - Raúl Castaño-Rosa

59:00-1:15:00 Hands-on exercise set-up followed by plenary discussion

The Spanish Government launched the country’s first National Strategy against Energy Poverty in April 2019. Among other actions, it sets an official statistical framework for monitoring the incidence of energy poverty and assessing the impact of relevant policies through the four main indicators of the European Observatory of Energy Poverty (EPOV): High share of energy expenditure in income (2M); Low absolute energy expenditure (M/2); Inability to keep home adequately warm; and Arrears on utility bills. Thinking of the biases and omissions introduced by official metrics, we ask each group to answer the three questions below:

● Which forms and what dimensions of energy poverty are currently going unrecognised by the Spanish Strategy and the EPOV indicators in the EU?
● Which groups are more likely to experience these unrecognised forms of energy poverty?
● What data and indicators could be used for an improved recognition of the above?

1:15:00-1:56:00 Presentation by trainee group followed by plenary discussion

As a follow-up to the ENGAGER Energy Rights Forum, the Spain hub trainee group made a group presentation answering the three main questions of the ‘Invisible energy precarity groups’ session:

● What needs to be done?
● What are the barriers to achieve what needs to be done?
● Who should be involved in the solution?

Minh Nguyen, University Institute of Lisbon
Flavia Carvalho, NOVA University of Lisbon
Cameron Ward, University of Liverpool
Roberto Barrella, Comillas Pontifical University

Reflections on policy relevance by trainers

Indicators and policies need to account for informality in housing and energy access - Sergio Tirado Herrero
How can researchers contribute to the invisible energy groups' recognition? - Raúl Castaño-Rosa

Recommended reading:

Karpinska, L., Śmiech, S., 2020. Invisible energy poverty? Analysing housing costs in Central and Eastern Europe. Energy Research & Social Science 70, 101670. (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2020.101670)
Middlemiss, L., Gillard, R., Pellicer, V., Straver, K., 2018. Plugging the Gap Between Energy Policy and the Lived Experience of Energy Poverty: Five Principles for a Multidisciplinary Approach, in: Foulds, C., Robison, R. (Eds.), Advancing Energy Policy. Springer International Publishing, Cham, pp. 15–29. (https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-99097-2_2)
Interrogating Madrid’s “Slum of Shame”: Urban Expansion, Race, and Place-Based Activisms in the Cañada Real Galiana – S. Gonick (https://doi.org/10.1111/anti.12156)