Rising energy prices across Europe have increased concerns over energy poverty. Despite significant scholarly focus on financial relief measures instituted by national governments, locally tailored crisis measures have remained overlooked. This study delves into the Dutch context, where part of the government's response to the energy crisis was decentralised, allowing municipalities considerable discretion in experimenting with energy poverty interventions. It compares two strategies: ‘energy coaching’ services – offering advice on sustainable energy practices – and shallow retrofitting by ‘fix teams’ – installing minor energy-saving measures in homes. The impact of these interventions on residential comfort, sustainable behaviour adoption, and (financial concerns regarding) energy bills is assessed through an extensive survey involving treatment and control groups coupled with detailed administrative data on households and dwellings. Results indicate that, on an aggregate level, local interventions significantly enhanced perceived comfort and reduced energy bills among the treatment groups. Comparing individual interventions, notably, more extensive ones such as fix teams and comprehensive energy coaching were significantly more impactful than those involving a single visit, highlighting the importance of continuous engagement. Additionally, we found that energy poverty status significantly amplified the effectiveness of these interventions, thereby stressing the importance of focusing efforts on vulnerable households.

The transition in welfare states from compensatory to service-oriented models also implies a shift of the locus of action from the state to local administrations. Cities in particular seek space within national bounds to devise their own policy solutions targeted to city-specific needs as a more responsive government layer, with the prospect of providing more targeted service provision on the basis of locality and proximity principles. Whether such social innovation potential is met depends on scope conditions, such as the learning environment, the design of the decentralisation and the capacity of cities to scale up smaller projects. In this paper, we trace the policy process around local social investment innovations in Amsterdam across three domains: addressing teacher shortages, combatting energy poverty and integrating the long-term unemployed into the labour market. In each of the domains, Amsterdam emerged as a frontrunner and innovator, instigating broader change. The city is at the frontier of societal change and acts as ‘a stopgap’, filling gaps left by national policy default. Overall, the case of Amsterdam shows the importance in adopting a multi-level perspective in studying new dynamics in welfare state transitions.

Decisions made by social housing providers (SHPs) profoundly affect their tenants' energy affordability, a group characterised by above-average energy poverty rates. Concentrated deprivation in this tenure has intensified due to policy-driven ‘residualisation’, compelling SHPs to serve almost exclusively low-income and marginalised households. Despite this, research exploring the potential of SHPs to tackle energy poverty through targeted interventions for their most vulnerable tenants remains sparse. The 2021–2022 energy price crisis offers a unique context to investigate this issue, given its substantial impact on household energy affordability. This study delves into insights of social housing professionals through focus groups conducted in France, England, and the Netherlands. It examines their views on the effectiveness of interventions and assesses their feasibility within the respective institutional contexts. We find that SHPs generally favour retrofit prioritisation and behavioural interventions as effective means of supporting at-risk tenants, whereas alterations in rent setting or housing allocation are considered potentially impactful but often undesirable or impracticable. We identify institutional barriers and lack of data as key obstacles to SHPs' adoption of more targeted interventions. To empower SHPs in tackling energy poverty, housing policy reforms must acknowledge and address the significant impact of energy costs within total housing expenses.

European governments have deployed targeted and untargeted financial support to protect vulnerable households from the impacts of the recent energy crisis. However, there is little knowledge of income elasticity of energy expenditure among households experiencing energy poverty. We therefore examine the link between energy expenditure and household income levels, considering a spectrum of factors including energy poverty status, energy efficiency of homes, and socio-demographics. We use England's official energy poverty definition, ‘Low-income, low-energy-efficiency’, and analyse the government's ‘Fuel Poverty Dataset’ from 2019. We find that, for all income groups, by far the greatest impact on energy expenditure is the dwelling's energy-efficiency rating, followed by floor area. An increase in income has negligible effects on energy expenditure for all income groups, but greatest for those in energy poverty, suggesting that even though most of their energy-oriented financial support is used for other pressing needs, this still offers some relief from energy poverty. We conclude that energy-efficiency improvements in homes would yield the most substantial and enduring financial benefits for these households, highlighting the need for targeted retrofitting policies. Additionally, older homeowners in energy poverty may need help to move into smaller, energy-efficient homes that are less expensive to heat.

Het Centraal Planbureau (CPB) telt hoeveel mensen een inkomen onder de armoedegrens hebben, en raamt vervolgens hoe dit door economie en voorgenomen beleid verandert. Deze armoede­cijfers werken echter ondoelmatig beleid in de hand. Het kan beter.

The European energy crisis of 2022 stresses the importance of protecting the most vulnerable households. Price peaks disproportionally affect households with low incomes, limited savings, and inefficient homes, and increased energy poverty: the inability to secure sufficient domestic energy services that allow for participation in society (Bouzarovski & Petrova, 2015).

Since European social housing countries have become increasingly residualised, a significant share of households in or at risk of energy poverty are being accommodated by social housing providers (Poggio & Whitehead, 2017; Walker, 2008). However, while most practitioners acknowledge that social housing providers (SHPs) have a responsibility in energy poverty alleviation, targeted intervention approaches have hardly been explored (Desvallees, 2022). The body of scholarship on energy poverty measurement has grown rapidly, but its use in practice has hardly been addressed (Bouzarovski et al., 2021). Sherriff et al. (2019) note that a possible explanation might be that insights from research are inadequately communicated to policymakers and practitioners. Charlier and Legendre (2021) add that the sense of urgency has substantially differed across countries.

This paper aims to combat these gaps, by proactively engaging with practitioners across Europe to find out which targeted intervention approaches are considered most effective, what their benefits and potential (regulatory) obstacles are, and whether these perspectives differ in different policy contexts. We indirectly examine the responsibilities SHPs are willing to accept within a ‘just transition’, and explore whether, and if so how, their apparent techno-economic approach to retrofit provision could be altered (De Feijter et al., 2019).

Recent energy price spikes have led to increased energy poverty among low-income households living in inefficient homes. Accurate statistics on energy poverty help inform resource allocation and better target relief schemes and retrofit funds. Existing indicators are predominantly defined in terms of a headcount ratio – the share of population living below a certain threshold or poverty line. In this paper we draw from the literature on income poverty evaluation to argue that the use of more elaborate energy poverty gap indices can substantiate the design and monitoring of energy poverty policies, by not only considering incidence but also intensity and inequality of energy poverty across households. We demonstrate that the choice for a particular energy poverty (gap) indicator makes the implicit welfare choices of energy poverty policies explicit. We illustrate our arguments for the case of the Netherlands, using recently developed microdata statistics on energy poverty, and an imposed energy price shock. We show that spatial targeting of relief funds based on incidence would neglect the full depth of energy poverty deprivation. Finally, we argue that visualisation techniques from the income poverty literature help to comprehend different poverty orderings and draw comparisons between time periods, regions, and subgroups.

Since energy prices across Europe started to rise in 2021, there has been growing concern of social housing tenants at risk of energy poverty. So far, studies have largely focused on the role of governments and on what tenants themselves could do. However, research has rarely considered specific targeting approaches by social housing providers (SHPs). This study explores the role of these stakeholders and investigates what policies French, English, and Dutch social housing providers could adopt to enhance the effectiveness of their energy poverty alleviation efforts. Focus groups with practitioners demonstrated their perspectives on the most effective interventions, their benefits and challenges, and their variation across policy contexts. We found that social housing professionals perceive a significant responsibility in addressing energy poverty among their tenants, but that there remains uncertainty regarding their role within the welfare state. While views and practices among SHPs vary, most deem prioritisation of retrofits and targeting behavioural interventions more effective and feasible approaches than setting rents progressively and targeting allocations. Particularly the presence of institutional barriers and a lack of data hinder SHPs from implementing a more targeted approach in addressing energy poverty.

This report addresses energy poverty in social housing, proposing solutions to aid an inclusive energy transition. It highlights the disproportionate impact of rising prices on vulnerable tenants, suggesting short-term measures like energy advice and energy-saving kits, along with long-term strategies such as prioritising renovations for those in need and reforming housing allocation policies to combat the issue effectively.

De verduurzaming van onze woningvoorraad is naast een technische operatie ook een verdelingsvraagstuk. Huishoudens met lage inkomens in slechte woningen moeten prioriteit krijgen bij het renovatiebeleid. En totdat iedereen in een duurzaam huis woont, moeten huishoudens die in de knel komen door hoge energieprijzen, worden gecompenseerd.

In korte tijd heeft energiearmoede zich ontwikkeld tot een grote beleidsuitdaging in Nederland, maar toch bleek een gerichte aanpak van de energiecrisis onmogelijk. Kunnen een beter begrip en berekening van energiearmoede overheden helpen om beleid te voeren dat niet alleen efficiënter maar ook rechtvaardiger en duurzamer is?