Towards a Better Understanding of Energy Poverty

As we have seen in previous chapters, energy poverty can be succinctly described as the inability to access the levels of clean energy required for essential basic household energy services 1 such as heating, lighting, cooking, etc., which can constrain people's ability to live the life they value most. While linked, energy poverty is considered by many to be distinct from income poverty – Palmer et al. (2008) for instance, observe that not all those who are energy poor are necessarily income poor and that not all those under income poverty thresholds are in energy poverty. Rather than simply being about income level, energy poverty is a complex and dynamic condition resulting from the interaction of multiple factors for any given household, including energy availability and prices, income, building efficiency, appliance efficiency, specific household energy needs, and householder capabilities. The influence of these different factors varies from household to household and is strongly motivated by social context and economic conditions.