Report on Energy Poverty in the Private Rented Sector – Overview &amp; Framework
Creators: name: Bouzarovski, Stefan
name: Burbidge, Manon
name: Stojilovska, Ana
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2021
Subjects: Energy Poverty
Private Rented Sector
Energy Efficiency
Energy Policy

description: Energy poverty – a situation where a household cannot meet its domestic energy needs – is poorly understood in relation to the Private Rented Sector (PRS). Yet PRS tenants in Europe are more likely to be suffering from this condition than the general population, and PRS housing has generally been found to be the least energy-efficient and least well-maintained. Alleviating energy poverty is a key precondition for achieving just transitions towards sustainability, and is gaining increasing attention as part of EU-wide and individual member states’ climate ambitions, such as the European Green New Deal. This overview of the current literature and suggested framework of measures to tackle energy poverty in the PRS was undertaken as part of the ENPOR (Actions to Mitigate Energy Poverty in the Private Rented Sector) project, in order to establish the state-of-the-art in knowledge of PRSspecific energy poverty challenges. The report consists of two core sections; the first is an in-depth review, which contextualizes and highlights specific challenges affecting the European PRS. This includes a historical overview, from 1970 to the present day, highlighting the increasing shift from homeownership and social renting to the PRS for a widening section of society. This part of the report also emphasizes the varieties of private renting, tenant-landlord relationships, and provides case studies from multiple European countries on the impact of financialization and deregulation of the PRS. Lastly, it examines experiences of inequality in the sector, particularly noting the experiences of young people and students. In the second section – titled ‘energy poverty in the PRS’ – we use the understandings established in the first section, and apply the historical and political shifts we examined to illuminate how energy poverty arises and is experienced in the sector. We scrutinize the impacts of tenant and landlord agency, and the types of tenants most likely affected by energy poverty. We then assess the barriers and drivers for increasing energy efficiency in privately rented homes, where we find that improving the efficiency of the PRS is not just a question of technical efficiency; it also involves complex social, economic and political challenges. There is also a synthesis of the best practices, policies and solutions which are being carried out around the world to implement energy efficiency improvements in the PRS, culminating in a conceptual framework and recommendations. We stress that literature coverage is geographically uneven, concentrated in Western Europe, as are the drivers and effects of policies studied – to the extent that it is difficult to formulate universally generalizable findings. We conclude by highlighting the multiple pathways for energy poverty alleviation in the PRS, including regulatory, financial, and social measures, and argue in favour of the need for representation of different sector stakeholders involved in these pathways.
description: The authors would like to acknowledge the support from the EC. The authors would like to thank the stakeholders that participated in the online survey. The content of this report is the sole responsibility of its authors and does not necessary reflect the views of the EC.