Invisible energy poverty? Analysing housing costs in Central and Eastern Europe (Aug 2020)

• Invisible energy poverty? Analysing housing costs in Central and Eastern Europe

• By Lilia Karpinska and Sławomir Śmiech. Published online on 5 August 2020 in Energy Research and Social science (full version of the article not available for free)

• https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2214629620302450?via%3Dihub

• Abstract:

  • The paper offers a comprehensive approach to capturing the scale of exposure to hidden energy poverty at a household level in 11 Central and Eastern European countries.

  • "Scarce data and the lack of agreement on the energy poverty definition among the EU countries impedes operationalization of energy poverty measures on a global scale," notes the paper.

  • The paper tracks hidden energy poverty based on the existing micro-level data compiled by Eurostat, and assumes that the energy poor limit their energy consumption to the level below what is reasonably assumed a decent life.

  • The results confirm that on average 23.57% of the Central and Eastern European population is exposed to hidden energy poverty. The affected are mostly single-person households or living in detached houses and remote areas households with dependent children.

• Keywords: hidden energy poverty, energy poverty, Central Europe, Eastern Europe, energy,