Energy poverty points to a decrease this year after 2023 in which some indicators marked maximums, and with social bonuses as a “lifesaver” for vulnerable households that were able to enjoy these discounts, which require a better design. These are some of the ideas launched this Tuesday by those responsible for the Chair of Energy and Poverty at the Universidad Pontificia Comillas, during the presentation in Madrid of its annual indicators report.
José Carlos Romero, coordinator of the chair, has pointed out that, with the data from 2023, the last year with data available from the National Institute of Statistics (INE), the problem of energy poverty, households that cannot satisfy their basic needs in the supply of energy (for heating, cooling, supply of appliances) due to having a low income level and/or having inefficient housing “does not disappear, but rather is consolidated.”
However, for this year 2024 the scenario is “more favorable,” explained Romero. “It has been a year of much more benign prices and it should be reflected because no social shield measure has come into question.”
The reinforcement of discounts on the electricity and gas rates that was launched with the pandemic and has been successively extended has only begun to relax now, this month of October. This month the discount for vulnerable consumers has gone from 65% to 57.5% and for the severely vulnerable it has gone from 80% to 72.5%. Starting in January it is expected that these percentages will become 50% and 65%, respectively.
With the strategy against energy poverty of the Ministry for the Ecological Transition pending renewal for 2025, Romero has indicated that “a better design of the bonus as a whole” would help alleviate this problem. Because bonuses work: in the words of Roberto Barrella, researcher of the chair, “at least in the short term” they are “a measure that works as a social shield.”
Thus, for households in the lowest income deciles, energy poverty was reduced by 10% last year thanks to these discounts. The problem is that we are “very far” from all possible beneficiaries receiving aid: 80% are left out, as reflected in a recent EsadeEcPol report. Meanwhile, many large, high-income families enjoy the bonus.
The latest Comillas report, which is now in its fourth edition, refers to 2023, a year that marked the beginning of the end of the inflationary and energy price crisis. The study is based on the Living Conditions Survey (ECV) and the Family Budget Survey (EPF) prepared by the INE.
It reflects that last year there was a historical maximum in the percentage of households that spend disproportionately on energy, with 17%, two tenths more than in 2022, despite the reduction in prices and the increase in household income. The insufficient spending indicator (households that spend very little compared to what they should) stood at 12.53%, the highest level since it began to be measured. Household energy expenditure fell across the board. The median was 662 euros, compared to 763 euros in 2022.
Hidden energy poverty, those people who reduce their energy consumption below that required because they do not have the resources to cover it, “continues at high levels”, but drops from 30.9% to 28.6%. The “severe” rate also decreased from 10.6% to 9.3%. In this section Extremadura is in the lead, due to the combination of low income and high need to heat and cool homes in this autonomous community.
The number of homes that could not maintain an adequate temperature during the winter grew to 20.7% in 2023. But, according to Barrella, we must “be careful” with this very high figure. It was probably influenced by a methodological change of the ECV in the date of collection of the information: it was asked in winter, and specifically in February 2023, with prices still very high, when in other years it was done in spring or summer.
And we must also be cautious with the “possible effects” of the late payment of invoices indicator. It stood at 9.6% in 2023. And, as Barrella has stressed, the moratorium implemented by the Government with the so-called social shield will cease to be in force, in principle, at the end of the year.
The researcher of this chair, sponsored by the Naturgy Foundation, Endesa and EdP, has also urged to “pay special attention”, in a context of climate change and warming, to the data of 33.7% of households that say that their home It is not cool enough during the summer.
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