Energy Poverty Handbook is out!

Written by Anna Bajomi,Programma Housing of the Compagnia San Paolo

At the end of November the Energy Poverty Handbook was published in Brussels. The aim of the Handbook is to offer a complex overview and up-to date knowledge for those who are concerned about the levels of energy poverty in Europe and want to contribute with their own capacities to eliminate it. Policy makers, NGOs, business and social professionals, academics and students can all use the handbook throughout their work.

The eight articles of the Handbook, provided by organisations and academic researchers active in the fields of energy poverty, describe the various aspects of energy poverty. The book starts with a description of social and health impacts of energy poverty, which is followed by a detailed overview about definitions of energy poverty and the state of the European housing stock. Then an article offers us a good understanding of macro-regional differences regarding levels and causes of energy poverty.

The second part of the handbook focuses on practices: articles describe the actual regulations aiming to protect vulnerable consumers, the available funding sources and good practices tackling energy poverty. The article about good practices would like to offer inspiration for policy makers and practitioners to develop and deliver their own projects after reading through case studies. The listed case-studies cover projects such as large-scale physical interventions, energy advice and advocacy services and finally grass-roots but still complex initiatives. Among the case studies the Residential Energy Efficiency for Low Income Households (REELIH) project of Habitat for Humanity  and USAID is presented as a good example for international interventions in building energy efficiency in countries where policy support and advocacy is highly needed to move forward the issues of energy efficiency.

The Energy Poverty Handbook initiated and edited by the office of Tamás Meszerics, Member of the European Parliament (The Greens/EFA group).

The contents of the book are the following:

• Sian Jones: Social causes and consequences of energy poverty (EAPN)
• Angela Tod and Harriet Thomson: Health impacts of cold housing and energy poverty
• Filippos Anagnostopoulos and Maarten de Groote: Energy performance of the housing stock (BPIE)
• Stefan Bouzarovski and Sergio Tirado Herrero: Understanding the core-periphery divide in the geographies of European energy poverty
• Harriet Thomson and Carolyn Snell: Definitions and indicators of energy poverty across the EU Member States
• Audrey Dobbins and Steve Pye: State level regulation related to energy poverty and vulnerable consumers
• Edit Lakatos: Warm homes for all – Tools to tackle the energy poverty challenge (Housing Europe)
• Anna Bajomi: How to tackle energy poverty – Good practices at a local level

You can read the full publication here.

Anna Zsófia Bajomi holds a Masters in Social Policy from the Eötvös Lóránd University of Budapest in Hungary. She has worked at the Municipality of Budapest on the Social Urban Rehabilitation Thematic Development Programme for local stakeholders, and at the office of Tamás Meszerics at the European Parliament. Her field of research is housing and energy poverty especially energy poor tenants, grass root initiatives and good practices tackling housing and energy poverty. Currently she is working on Social Rental Agencies, and studies other innovative housing solutions at the Programma Housing of the Compagnia San Paolo in Turin, Italy, in the frame of the Erasmus For Young Entrepreneurs Program of the European Commission.