The policy implications of energy poverty indicators

Abstract

The methodologies and indicators that have been proposed in the literature to measure energy poverty are quite diverse. Some are subjective approaches based on personal or third parties’ perceptions of affordable warmth at home; whereas others calculate objective indicators. Although these different proposals have already been theoretically compared, an empirical comparative analysis that measures in a real case study the practical impact of the theoretical limitations detected for the different indicators was still pending. The goal of this paper is thus to contribute to this debate by comparing critically the different approaches used to measure energy poverty in a real case (Spain in 2015), and to propose a new methodology that might be able to overcome some of the major problems that affect current methods.

The methodologies and indicators that have been proposed in the literature to measure energy poverty are quite diverse. Some are subjective approaches based on personal or third parties’ perceptions of affordable warmth at home; whereas others calculate objective indicators. Although these different proposals have already been theoretically compared, an empirical comparative analysis that measures in a real case study the practical impact of the theoretical limitations detected for the different indicators was still pending. The goal of this paper is thus to contribute to this debate by comparing critically the different approaches used to measure energy poverty in a real case (Spain in 2015), and to propose a new methodology that might be able to overcome some of the major problems that affect current methods.