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.
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.