The interest is to address different themes within the energy poverty issues. The lunch talk format includes 20-30 minutes of presentation and 30-40 minutes of open dialogue among participants.
#15 TARGET: Technical Assistance Facility for Clean Energy Transition, June 2024
At this lunch talk we delved into the Technical Assistance for a Green Energy Transition (TARGET) programme and its pivotal role in supporting EU regions as they transition from fossil fuels to sustainable energy sources as well as its potential benefits for. This event highlighted the impact of the TARGET initiative with a focus on a case from Hungary— the decarbonisation of the district heating system in Eger.
Speakers:
- Sarunas Bruzge, Economist, TARGET programme coordinator, European Investment Bank.
- Zsuzsa Dr Piskóti-Kovács, Head of Hungarian Coal Commission Secretariat.
#14 Storytelling for Energy Poverty, April 2024
Speakers:
- Simone Padovani, acclaimed international photographer and Climate Pact Ambassador, will share insights on engaging citizens through storytelling to raise awareness about energy poverty. Drawing from their extensive experience and captivating imagery, Padovani demonstrated how personal stories can drive meaningful change in energy justice.
- Laia Segura, Energy Justice Campaigner at Friends of the Earth Europe. They introduced the "Powerful Encounters" exhibition. Through a compelling collection of photographs and narratives, the exhibition offers a poignant glimpse into the lives of individuals across Europe grappling with the challenges of the energy crisis. Segura highlighted the importance of amplifying these voices to foster empathy and drive collective action towards energy equity.
#13 Artificial Intelligence Solutions for Alleviating Energy Poverty, March 2024
This event explored the potential of artificial intelligence in alleviating energy poverty. Two innovative projects showcasing AI's role in improving energy access for underserved communities were presented.
Speakers:
- Agapito Ledezma, Carlos III University, shared the experience of using AI in the EPIU project.
- Aniol Esquerra, Ecoserveis, presented the challenges within the Climate Ready BCN project.
#12 Efficiency First: How cities are fighting energy poverty with Passive House, February 2024
The event took a deep dive into passive house solutions, aiming to enhance building energy efficiency and, ultimately, mitigate energy poverty.
The session touched upon what makes a building sustainable, with a special focus on energy performance. In addition, common misconceptions about carbon neutrality in buildings were addressed, alongside practical examples of projects working with passive house models.
Speakers:
- Sarah Mekjian, Climate Alliance presented the outPHit project.
- Harald Malzer, Innsbruck's Social Housing Association, presented a pilot of the outPHit project.
#11 Updated national indicators: new opportunities to expand knowledge on energy poverty, December 2023
The event focused on the new national indicators report and the updates of the EPAH dashboard, aiming to delve once more into energy poverty diagnosis and discuss the potential and suitability of the newly added indicators and topics for assessing energy poverty at multiple scales.
Speakers:
- João Pedro Gouveia, FCT NOVA and EPAH presented the new EPAH dashboard (topics, subtopics, and changes in indicators).
- Pedro Palma, FCT NOVA and EPAH presented specific indicators: their advantages, disadvantages, and applications for energy poverty assessment.
#10 Post-Warsaw Annual Conference Insights: Improving skills to tackle energy poverty, November 2023
During this event, there was an introduction to the world of competencies and skills needed to tackle energy poverty, drawing from recently published recommendations. This introductory overview provided a better understanding of the context within which our discussion takes place.
Subsequently, the methodological approach employed in our work was shared, providing an analysis of how the activity was structured and outlining the objectives we aimed to achieve.
Finally, we explored together the outcomes from the workshop organised during our last annual international conference in Warsaw, highlighting practical solutions and tools that can enhance the effectiveness of actions against energy poverty. It was an opportunity to exchange innovative ideas and enhance our understanding of the challenges related to this significant social issue.
#9 National reflections: Unveiling the challenges and opportunities of energy poverty in Europe, July 2023
The Energy Poverty Advisory Hub held events in spring of 2023 in several countries to understand the challenges faced by local and regional governments and the current policies in place to support vulnerable communities and consumers. The participants were also able to explore solutions and draw up recommendations for future action.
This lunch talk was organised following the conference of the European Economic and Social Committee on energy poverty, where the national conclusions were presented.
For this lunch talk, we heard from some of the national reflections to explore the common challenges and discuss solutions to tackle energy poverty in Europe.
Indicative agenda:
- Presentation of the reflections in Spain.
- Presentation of the reflections in Italy.
- Presentation of the reflections in Ireland.
- Presentation of the reflections in Cyprus.
#8 Domestic safety challenges: risk of fire for energy-poor households, June 2023
This session aimed to shed light on the intersection of energy poverty and fire risk, exploring the factors that make individuals experiencing energy poverty more vulnerable to domestic fire incidents. During the event, speakers shared practical solutions to mitigate fire risk and ensure energy efficient and fire safe housing for households, discussing the different facets of the challenge: unsafe energy consumption practices, poor quality or obsolete electrical installations, fire prevention measures in retrofitting interventions etc.
Speakers:
- Olivier Tissot, coordinator of the secretariat of the Forum for European Electrical Domestic Safety (FEEDS) presented the work of the forum on energy poverty and fire risk, sharing the results of a research carried out in Europe on the matter.
#7 Coping with energy poverty during summer, May 2023
Much of Europe experiences intense heatwaves since 2000, with notable impacts on human health and socio-economic systems. And, although energy poverty has traditionally been defined by wintertime heating, it is just as important during the summer months.
Up to 19 % of households in the EU reported being too hot during the summer. This lunch talk held an exchange around summer energy poverty concept and provided practical recommendations to raise summer energy poverty awareness and reduce cooling needs.
Speakers:
- Carmen Sanchez-Guevara, UPM (Universidad Politécnica de Madrid).
- Miguel Nuñez, COOLTORISE project, Raising summer energy poverty awareness to reduce cooling needs.
#6 Tackling energy poverty through behaviour change, April 2023
Among the different measures to address energy poverty, education and awareness are often mentioned as key element. It is important to analyse the positive behaviour of vulnerable consumers, transfer their knowledge and use this approach to design more effective approaches.
The lunch talk discussed the behavioural change measures and explore how to implement an effective programme, and develop targeted messages to empower vulnerable consumers and ensure their access to affordable energy services.
Speakers:
- Marta Garcia, Ecoserveis, gave an overview of targeted measures towards vulnerable consumers.
- Andrea Tamas, Ranas Ltd., presented the RANAS model, an approach to systematic behaviour change applied to energy poverty.
#5 The need to have a multi-actor approach to address energy poverty, March 2023
Energy poverty is a multidimensional challenge which needs a holistic approach where complementary and multi-sector solutions should be proposed by different actors. People in a condition of energy poverty face different problems, as we well know it is not only a problem of not being able or not being able to keep an adequate comfort level in the house but it's also having health problems, having the house foreclosed due to not paying the mortgage, it's about not being able to have a proper and healthy diet or not being able to ensure proper education to the children. The only way to be aware of and to duly take into account all the different needs of the people in energy poverty (which may be even more than the ones reported above) is to tackle energy poverty with a multidisciplinary and multi-actor team not only within the municipality but also engaging external stakeholders.
To build a fully equipped "energy poverty" team there is the need to 1) identify within the municipality the colleagues working on related topics and 2) map and identify external stakeholders and then to invite both.
Speakers:
- Marine Cornelis, Director of Next Energy Consumer on key stakeholders to address energy poverty with a multi-actor approach.
- Francesca Gaburro (AESS, Energy agency of Modena) on Modena's experience in identifying and engaging key stakeholders.
#4 Supporting local governments in tackling energy poverty: what is the EPAH technical assistance?, February 2023
Before the launch of the second call for technical assistance, the EPAH team presented several ongoing technical assistances (at the time) to understand what can be developed to tackle energy poverty in a variety of local contexts.
Representatives of municipalities which were receiving expert support, presented the different activities they were carrying out together with the dedicated expert organisation and the EPAH team. From realising a diagnosis to planning and implementing targeted measures and actions, participants explored a wide range of interventions.
Cities cases under technical assistance presentation
- Milan, Italy.
- Jozsefvaros, Hungary.
- Zagreb, Croatia.
- Sitges, Spain.
#3 One year on the energy poverty topic in retrospective: reflections and expectations for 2023, January 2023
Energy poverty has been an important issue during the year 2022. The geopolitical context and the energy crisis have reinforced situations of energy poverty. Many actors have acted to address this growing challenge by continuing the work already done and by being innovative and implementing new sets of emergency measures. This lunch talk exchanged around this past year to reflect on what happened and to discuss together the challenges for the year 2023.
Speakers:
- Stefan Bouzarovski, Professor at the University of Manchester.
- Presentation of the municipality of Getafe, Spain.
#2 Indicators importance for local scale assessments of energy poverty, December 2022
This event discussed the importance of indicators for the local scale assessments of energy poverty. The lunch talk addressed the challenges surrounding the use and the application of the indicators available for diagnosing energy poverty. As it offers a great visualisation of energy poverty levels, the new EPAH dashboard on national indicators will be presented.
The participants were invited to share their experiences regarding the challenges they can face in diagnosing energy poverty, as well as presenting their work with indicators, in order to bring together knowledge and inspirational cases to learn from each other.
Speakers:
- Dr. João Pedro Gouveia, CENSE, FCT - NOVA University of Lisbon and EPAH, ''The Importance of Measurement - Exploring energy poverty indicators through the EPAH Dashboard''.
- Pedro Palma, CENSE, FCT - NOVA University of Lisbon and EPAH, on "Lessons for energy poverty assessments at the national and local scales" .
#1 Lunch talk - A safe winter for all: sharing experiences of local energy saving actions from EU municipalities, November 2022
The current geopolitical context is challenging the energy system in Europe. The consequences of the economic and energy crisis are hitting European citizens hard. The rising energy prices are indeed increasing the pressure on the most vulnerable people and are accentuating energy poverty situations.
Structural measures, as Fit for 55 packages and the recent REPowerEU plan, set the long-term path to make Europe independent from Russian fossil fuels before 2030 and achieve climate neutrality by 2050. However, emergency and short-term measures must be taken to address the direct consequences of the crisis, the most important of which is the increase of energy prices. Alongside the Save Gas for a Safe Winter plan, proposed by the Commission to reduce gas consumption, local governments are responding to the challenges to help vulnerable consumers against energy shortages and rising energy prices by adopting extraordinary measures and practical solutions.
This first lunch talk was the opportunity to learn more about EU municipalities’ experiences and practices in emergency energy measures to prepare for winter extreme energy conditions, with a focus on how vulnerable consumers are taken into account in these emergency measures.
The event was co-organised and featured speakers from the Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy Europe and the ENPOR project (Energy poor households in the private rented sector).