Energy poverty in the European Union: The art of kaleidoscopic measurement

Abstract

Energy poverty measurement in the European Union is a topical issue as existing indicators are disconnected and provide only a partial view of energy-related deprivations. The analysis of unique joint SILC-HBS microdata from Hungary allows for the direct comparison and joint assessment of all headline indicators of energy poverty at the micro level, and yields a series of novel and policy-relevant insights. Importantly, this study finds that existing consensual and expenditure-based measures identify wholly different population segments as energy poor, with less than one third of energy poor households suffering from multiple forms of energy-related deprivations. Different indicators also diverge greatly in terms of incidence, seasonality, cross-country comparability, persistence as well as the socio-demographic background, housing arrangement and living conditions of those identified as energy poor. The presented findings suggest that much of energy poverty may remain hidden using the current data and measurement framework. This calls for new multi-dimensional approaches, the integration of European household surveys, and the exploration of alternative metrics based on the direct measurement of households' energy consumption.