Basic energy consumptions for the energy poverty studies in Spain

Abstract

The project context is the energy poverty. This theme is very actual and has a lot of social repercussion nowadays as electricity and gas price volatility has affected too many humble people in Europe. People, governments and utilities are becoming more and more aware of the magnitude of the penetration of energy poverty in the society and the efforts to reduce it have never been as many as now. The energy services are essential for a country, for its development and the welfare of its population. For example, electricity consumption is strongly related with the GDP growth of a country. The main energetic vectors that concern the energy poverty are the access and consumption of electricity, gas and heat water. These energy vectors are essential to have a decent household habitability. Despite so, it is estimated that 1.2billion people still do not have to electricity. These people are distributed mainly over Africa and Asia and with a higher proportion in rural areas. Two important figures to have in mind are that 17% of global population do not have electricity and 38% of global population do not have cooking facilities. There are two essential parts concerning the energy poverty, the energy access and the energy consumption, i.e. people not having the opportunity to consume electricity, gas or heat water because the grid is not developed to meet them, and the people who despite having the connection cannot consume because they are not able to pay for the cost of the consumption. In the case of Spain, geographical target of this study, the energy access is universal and is considered as a solved issue and the energy poverty was thought to be linked with the economic crisis despite it existed before too. The reality of the energy poverty has motivated and maintained the community doing studies around the topic despite the difficulties due to the little resource availability. To promote an effective and useful debate about the different possible solutions, to identify and imply the different agents and actors including the public administrations, the media, the energy utilities and the political parties among others. The objective of the study is to calculate the basic energy consumptions in Spain under different scenarios. These consumptions will be used to develop and analyse projects and strategies to mitigate the energy poverty. To achieve so, there are many variables that have to be determined and studies for different scenarios to study the energy needs to meet a worthy habitability in order to keep the household heated during the winter and cooled during the summer, to have energy to cook and do the normal living. So, the project’s main objective is the development of a tool to compute different energy poverty scenarios and quantify in monetary terms the subsidies that would be needed to cover the problem break down into autonomous communities, provinces and rural and urban area. There must be a distinction between the water, electricity and gas expenses taking into account the different demands and consumes of the different regions in Spain. The program has been developed in Excel due to the simplicity of the programming and the capacity to be easily extended during and after the project. In the excel tool there are many freedom degrees in order to let the user create cases regarding its needs. For this purpose, there have been added especially modifiable quantities marked in pink in the general data sheet. These variables are: Water consumption: the frequency and quantities of water consumption can be modified in order to create different water consumption profiles. Cooking frequency: the number of cooks per week can be modified to adapt it to the case of study desired. Television and computer: the frequency and hours can be modified to create different consumption profiles. Fixed cost of water: due to the fact that it was too complex to take into account each water supply company, the different bills have been simplified with a variable term plus a fix term as it was explained before. The fixed term depends on the company and thus has been let free to change as a variable of the case. Electricity contracted power: contracted electricity power. Normally with a contracted power of 3.3kW of electric capacity is enough to cover the peak demand, but the term has been let variable to generate different cases. Electricity price: the electricity price is very volatile depending on the weather, costs of fuel etc. It is interesting to see how its different prices may affect energy poverty and quantify it. Social bonus: the social bonus is already acting and thus, it has been let free to be able to quantify the energy poverty with and without its effect. Size of the household: the size of the household is modifiable; for the base case the size has been extracted from the minimum habitability cellule, but it has been let free to generate different cases. The size of the household is directly related to the heat and air conditioning consumptions. Heating coefficient: gives the percentage of the heated surface of the household in the optimal case. For the base case, it is only considered to have 20m2 of heated surface. Air conditioned surface: gives the possibility to modify the air-conditioned surface to create new scenarios or compute its effect. Percentage of energy poverty to cover: gives the possibility to adjust the percentage of the households that is under energy poverty whose energy expenses are going to be take into account to be covered. Gas penetration coefficient: this coefficient affects the hypothesis of the gas penetration. Let it in 0 the penetration of the gas is only in the urban areas, but if it is higher than 0 there exist buildings with gas in the rural areas. This tool allows the creation of new scenarios and is interesting to see how the gas penetration affects energy poverty. Energy efficiency factor: this factor can take values from 0 to 5. If 1, then the efficiency is the one extracted from the studies and used in the base case. If 0, all the buildings are considered old and thus, with bad efficiency characteristics. The higher the value, the higher the proportion of new buildings with better efficiency characteristics. It is essential to mention another useful tool used to show the results in a summarized way. The map of Spain with the different provinces also developed in Excel allows to show the values of anything, for example, demands, water cost, electricity costs, etc. in a simple way. [Source: Blog “Análisis y decision.” http://analisisydecision.es/nuevo-y-muy-mejorado-mapa-de-espana-por-provinciascon- excel/] Given the base case consumption profile and hypothesis, and having the actual image of Spain in terms of distribution of population in rural and urban areas, the gas penetration, the population of the different cities and provinces and the reference demands, the expenses that the State should dispose in order to cover the total of the energy vulnerability should be the ones shown in the table below. Given the absence of direct policies to combat energy poverty by the central government beyond this incomplete social bond, it is at the regional and municipal levels that we find the most relevant initiatives. We highlight the case of the Generalitat of Catalonia that, for just over a year and a half, is working with the central government in relation to a regulation on energy poverty. This work aimed to establish a winter truce between November and March, both included, so that the energy supply (water, electricity and gas) would not be interrupted to families in vulnerable situation. The Social Inclusion Plan of the Government of Andalusia includes an Extraordinary Program for vital minimum supplies and social emergency benefits. The program is endowed with 6.5 million euros and will be carried out through transfers to municipalities. Specific costs are considered to cover basic energy supplies, electricity costs and expenses related to water supply. On the other hand, the budget in the Basque Country includes a budget of 200,000 euros to cover the needs of families who cannot cope with energy bills, although the mechanisms for allocating this item have not yet been defined. It is important to note that this is in addition to social emergency aid, which includes energy bills by law. Finally, the Xunta de Galicia has just launched the second call for its social electric ticket with a budget of 1.5 million euros. The aid, which is requested for half-year, is 180 euros for families with one or two children (under 18 years) and 300 euros for large families. As it can be seen, the actual measures are insufficient. It has to be taken into account that the numbers shown in the previous table are the sum of the expenses for all the vulnerable consumers, and not only the ones suffering energy poverty. In addition, it has to be mentioned that finally not all the people under energy poverty would ask for the aid due to lack of information etc. Analysing in further detail the two existing measures regarding direct payments to cover energy invoices: The Basque Country only destinies 200.000€ to fight the energy poverty. The amount calculated for the vulnerable consumers is 19.2 million euros per year for all the electricity and gas consumptions but taking into account all the vulnerable consumers. Despite this number is overestimated because not all the vulnerable consumers will suffer from energy poverty and neither all of them will ask for the aid, the amount designated is considered lower than the real amount needed. The Xunta de Galicia designates 1.5million euros to fight the energy poverty in the electricity and gas concepts. The calculated amount to cover the energy vulnerable consumers in Galicia is around 20 million euros per year. As in the above case, this includes all the expenses in electricity and gas taking into account all the vulnerable population of Galicia. The amount is small compared to the needs because estimating with the energy poverty percentage the amount needed is around 10 million euros. Finally, it is important to point out that the payment of the unpaid invoice does not solve the root problem, it merely alleviates a situation of vulnerability which, with few exceptions, is not only a temporary problem of the home, but a chronic situation in time. For this reason, it is thought that this type of measures must be accompanied by other measures of greater depth that allow to mitigate Energy poverty. However, it must be realized that certain situations of social urgency require funds to be allocated to measures that, although mitigating, are those that can be implemented more quickly and those that allow an emergency to be dealt with immediately.