Some 47 million people in Europe were unable to heat their homes sufficiently last winter. This figure has risen dramatically since 2021. Three factors are decisive when it comes to “energy poverty”: obsolete buildings, high energy costs, and low household incomes. Experts warn that the result may be social conflict.
As the article says, this problem has several layers.
We have also energy problem in my apartment in Riga. State offers us something like 70000€ to insulate our 120 year old hause. The catch is, me and my neighbors have to pull that money together, do the renovation and after the fact we are reimbursed. But dude. Who has such money laying around!?
I know people don’t like to hear it but, assuming you and your neighbours collectively own the house, taking out a loan for a renovation like this isn’t the worst idea. Might be a massive headache though.
That is what loans are for. You own the house and this can work as collatoral.
What is sufficiently?
Last couple of summers I left the thermostat at 19°C. I prefer 21. But bills got really out of hand, so 19 it is. And not all day, for instance now in the morning I’m at 16-17, but I have a lot of blankets over and an electric blanket, so it’s cozy. I usually start heating at midday.
Would this count?
Anyway, social conflict will not happen over this. The worst things on this regard happened a couple of years ago when prices spiked dramatically, and nothing happened.
In the EU-wide survey conducted by Eurostat, participants were asked whether their household could afford the adequately heat the home. No fixed temperature was specified; answers are based on self-assessment.
The shame is governments not doing anything to subsidise the energy.
I am lucky enough to now live in a country where electricity is subsidised and on top of that climate is mild enough not to have to heat my home that much.
I spend in a year what I used to in a month in my former place in Belgium.
Yes moving to the South was for a part motivated by energy prices.What I’d like to see in place of a direct energy subsidy would be a program to upgrade the heating infrastructure in each home to highly energy efficient variants, thus reducing the energy demands for the occupant and simultaneously addressing issues of grid energy consumption and emissions.
I’m talking about upgrades to insulation and the installation of heat pumps. The heat pumps could even perform double duty by being reversible so that they can provide air conditioning in warm months, further saving lives, at the expense of negating some of the reduction in energy consumption.
The biggest problem here: Any subsidy in regard of renovating or insulating would go to the landlord. And the landlord is even allowed to hike your rent if he renovates the building.
An affordance would need to be in place to counteract that effect, yes.
They are, at least where I am. They would sometimes give a €100 credit towards their bill. And those bills are oddly an extra €100 higher than normal, and only those bills.
The fuck? For real?
Energy got incredibly expensive. I live in a very small, well insulated house (good), but it’s heated with electricity as resistive heat (not good). So no heat pumps (which would be good again).
I happen to be able to see how much it costs me to heat it. It’s not particularly cold at the moment and it’s between 7 and 10 € every day! So calling it 1000€ for a month in winter isn’t far off.
Now if you have a larger house, or bad (or even no) insulation, even if you’re heating with some fuel that’s cheaper per kWh, it’ll still add up to at least similar if not higher numbers. Not hard to imagine that’s quickly too much for many people…
