Energy Poverty

Front matter

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ENERGY POVERTY

Stefan Bouzarovski

Preface

This book is the direct result of nearly five years of work on the Energy Vulnerability and Urban Transitions in Europe project (www.urban-energy.org), generously supported by a Starting Grant from the European Research Council—under the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013/ERC grant agreement number 313478). The project, commonly known under the acronym EVALUATE (Energy Vulnerability and Urban Transitions in Europe project), has sought to transform scientific knowledge and policy action on energy poverty—a form of material deprivation that affects billions of people across the world.

EVALUATE is a multi-sited study, involving extensive research across a variety of cities and countries. Focusing primarily on four Central and Eastern European cities (Budapest, Gdańsk, Prague and Skopje) the project has undertaken a customized survey with 2435 households, supplemented with insights from in-depth household interviews, ‘energy diaries’ and energy efficiency audits in the homes of approximately 160 households living in the four cities. EVALUATE has entailed 195 expert interviews in a much wider range of sites across the world, as well as an analysis of micro-data from national and European Union surveys of energy poverty. It has led to more than 200 dissemination activities, while laying the basis for the European Energy Poverty Observatory as well as a new European Co-operation for Science and Technology Action on ‘European Energy Poverty: Agenda Co-Creation and Knowledge Innovation’.

EVALUATE benefited from a range of parallel knowledge exchange and dissemination events, funded with the support of the UK Energy vi PREFACE

Research Centre (in 2013), the Eaga Charitable Trust (in 2016 and 2017) as well as the Journal of Development Studies Conference Fund at the University of Manchester (in 2017). Such activities were further enhanced by related projects in which I was involved as co-investigator, funded by the UK’s Economic and Social Research Council (via the ‘Urban Transformation in South Africa Through Co-Designing Energy Services Provision’ project) as well as Horizon 2020 (‘Calculating and Operationalising the Multiple Benefits of Energy Efficiency in Europe’). Overall, this corpus of activities helped create a motivated and vibrant community of experts and practitioners with a global reach.

Also contributing to the intellectual development of this book has been my engagement as a visiting professor at University of Bergen’s Department of Geography (at the Centre for Climate and Energy Transformation), as well as my continued role as an External Professor at the Department of Economic Geography at the University of Gdańsk. The latter was one of our partners in the EVALUATE project, alongside Charles University, the Central European University, the University of Skopje as well as the Centre for Environmental Research and Information ‘Eko Svest’. Of note is the recognition afforded to EVALUATE by the University of Krakow, which awarded me a habilitation degree in 2017 in relation to, in part, my work on the project. In 2015, I benefited from the intellectual space associated with a visiting fellowship at the Leibniz Institute for Research on Society and Space. Worthy of particular mention is the rich research environment provided by my home institution—the University of Manchester: the Department of Geography, the Collaboratory for Urban Resilience and Energy, and the Manchester Urban Institute.

EVALUATE has engaged a team of outstanding individuals whose contribution to the project has been immeasurable: the core group has consisted of Neil Simcock, Sergio Tirado Herrero, Harriet Thomson, Saska Petrova and Thomas Maltby. Some of the papers that I co-authored with some of them form the basis for part of the material presented in this book. Additional support in the field has been provided by Gerda Jénasz, Nevena Smilevska, Jan Frankowski and Roman Matoušek. Special thanks are also due to the Advisory Board of the project, consisting of Michael Bradshaw, Matthias Braubach, Mark Gaterell, Richard Green, Karen Rowlingson, Iwona Sagan, Luděk Sýkora and Diana Urge-Vorsatz.

Manchester, UK Stefan Bouzarovski

CONTENTS l Energy Poverty Revisited 1 2 Understanding Energy Poverty, Vulnerability and Justice 9 3 Energy Poverty Policies at the EU Level 41 4 The European Energy Divide 75

5 Concluding Thoughts: Embracing and Capturing Complexity 109

Index 115 vii

CEER CEF ECC ECE ECHP EED EESC EPEE EVALUATE HBS IEM LIHC PSO SANCO SILC TEP VCWG

List OF ACRONYMS

Council of European Energy Regulators

Citizens’ Energy Forum

Energy Consumers’ Charter

Eastern and Central Europe

European Community Household Panel

Energy Efficiency Directive

European Economic and Social Committee European Fuel Poverty and Energy Efficiency project Energy Vulnerability and Urban Transitions in Europe project Household Budget Survey

Internal Energy Market

Low Income High Cost

Public Service Obligation

Directorate General for Health and Consumers Statistics on Income and Living Conditions

Third Energy Package

Vulnerable Consumers Working Group ix

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LIST OF FIGURES

Dimensions influencing the delivery of energy services to the home, and the emergence of domestic energy deprivation. Originally published in Bouzarovski and Petrova (2015) Thermal energy retrofits can have a significant impact on the amelioration of energy poverty—as has been the case in inner-city Prague (photo by Stefan Bouzarovski) District heating is common in the inner city of Skopje (Macedonia)—one of the case study areas of the Energy Vulnerability and Urban Transitions in Europe project (photo by Stefan Bouzarovski)

An energy poverty session at European Energy Week, 2017 (photo by Saska Petrova)

Participants at an international conference on energy poverty and vulnerability in Manchester, in 2013

(photo by Stefan Bouzarovski)

A composite fuel poverty indicator based on the shares

of populations in different EU countries facing selected energy poverty-related problems, with the values of the three ‘objective’ measures divided by 3. Originally published in Bouzarovski (2014)

Percentage of people at risk of poverty versus the energy poverty index. Average for EU member states 2003-2013 for both variables. Originally published in Bouzarovski and Tirado Herrero (2017b)

Regional variation in the shares of households that experienced energy burdens above 20 per cent in three xi xii LIST OF FIGURES

Central European countries. Originally published in Bouzarovski and Tirado Herrero (2017a)

Regional variation in the shares of households that were energy poor according to the LIHC indicator, in three Central European countries. Originally published in Bouzarovski and Tirado Herrero (2017a)

Regional variation in the shares of Hungarian and Polish households that experienced inadequately warm or cool homes, mapped against PPP (purchasing power parity)- adjusted GDP per capita figures. Originally published

in Bouzarovski and Tirado Herrero (20174)

Shares of households in the LIHC (right-hand x axis) and high energy burden (left-hand x axis) categories in different settlement size categories, Czechia. Originally published in Bouzarovski and Tirado Herrero (2017a)

LIST OF TABLES

Correlation matrix: Pearson’s r coefficients of linear correlation between SILC energy poverty indicators

and index (columns) and the at-risk-of-poverty rate (rows), calculated upon average values of EU-28 Member States for the period 2003-2013. Originally published in Bouzarovski and Tirado Herrero (2017a)

Percentage of Hungarian households who dedicated

more than 10 per cent of their energy expenditure to

solid fuels in 2005 and 2011, by income deciles. Originally published in Bouzarovski et al. (2016)

Energy poverty indicators for selected housing typologies in Hungary (expressed as shares of households in the relevant category within all households). Above-average values are italicized and shaded. Originally published in Bouzarovski and Tirado Herrero (20174)

Energy poverty indicators for selected housing typologies in Hungary (expressed as shares of households in the relevant category within all households). Above-average values of the ‘category’ shares are italicized and shaded. Originally published in Bouzarovski and Tirado Herrero (2017a)

Housing-related indicators of vulnerability to energy poverty. In the table, ‘category’ refers to the share of households that are considered vulnerable to the given indicator within the specific socio-demographic category; ‘total’ refers to the cumulative share of households in the xiii xiv LIST OF TABLES sample (i.e. as a proportion of all households) that are

considered vulnerable to the given indicator. Above-average

values of the ‘category’ shares are italicized and shaded.

Originally published in Bouzarovski and Tirado Herrero

CHAPTER 1 Energy Poverty Revisited

Abstract This chapter introduces the political and scientific context in which the book is situated. It defines the terms ‘energy poverty’ and ‘infrastructural divide’ while discussing the purpose and structure of the book. The book’s central aim is the consolidation and development of debates on European and global energy poverty, by exploring the political and infrastructural drivers and implications of the condition across a variety of spatial scales.

Keywords Energy poverty ° Energy vulnerability ¢ Fuel poverty Infrastructure ¢ European Union energy policy

Energy poverty occurs when a household is unable to secure a level and quality of domestic energy services—space cooling and heating, cooking, appliances, information technology—sufficient for its social and material needs. This somewhat contested and broad definition lies at the tip of a vast scientific and policy iceberg, involving complex socio-technical relations that extend across the planet. Energy poverty affects millions of people worldwide, even if the causes and consequences vary depending on context. Historically, the existence of this condition in the Global North has

© The Author(s) 2018 1 S. Bouzarovski, Energy Poverty, https: //doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-69299-9_1 been attributed to contingencies such as low incomes, energy-inefficient homes and high energy prices, while in the Global South, the infrastructural lack of access to more technologically advanced energy carriers has been seen as the main culprit (Bouzarovski & Petrova, 2015). It is estimated that more than one billion people across the world suffer from this condition; and it has received significant prominence thanks to high-profile international drives such as the ‘Sustainable Energy for All’ initiative, aimed at ‘reducing the carbon intensity of energy while making it available to everyone on the planet’ so as to contribute to a ‘cleaner, just and prosperous world for all’ (Sustainable Energy for All, 2017).

The existence of energy poverty in the ‘developed’ countries of the Global North was traditionally interpreted within a relatively narrow thematic and geographic register: for a long time, public recognition of the problem was limited to the UK and the Republic of Ireland. The last decade has seen as expansion of scientific and policy debates to a much wider range of countries and regions, particularly in Europe but also in North America, Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand (Hilbert & Werner, 2016; Kim, Lee, Ahn, Lim, & Kim, 2016; Liu, Judd, & Santamouris, 2017; Maxim, Mihai, Apostoaie, & Maxim, 2017; Oppenheim, 2016; Scarpellini, Sanz Hernandez, Llera-Sastresa, Aranda, & Lopez Rodriguez, 2017; Teller-Elsberg, Sovacool, Smith, & Laine, 2016; Tirado & Jiménez Meneses, 2016; Williams, Wooliscroft, & Lawson, 2015). Of note is the recent establishment of a European Energy Poverty Observatory—a new initiative supported by the European Union (EU), aimed at providing a public hub for the gathering and dissemination of information on the extent and nature of domestic energy deprivation in Europe. The Observatory collects and publishes Europe-wide energy poverty data, while serving as the focal point of an emergent network of policymakers, research scientists, advocacy groups and community activists interested in the issue. It aims to improve the state of the art on energy poverty detection, measurement and reporting by creating a public forum for the exchange of knowledge on the issue (Energy Vulnerability and Urban Transitions, 2017a).

There is an expectation that the Observatory will become a decision-support tool for the significant amount of new EU-wide energy policy and legislation that will be developed in the near future. This process is part of a wider regulatory drive, reflected in the recent inclusion of energy poverty as a distinct thematic area in the Energy Union and Clean Energy Package proposals and the presence of the term in various EU policy documents

ENERGY POVERTY REVISITED 3 since 2009. The public recognition of energy poverty has been supported, in part, by concerted advocacy efforts on the part of non-governmental organizations (NGOs), lobby groups and businesses. Recent examples include the formation of a coalition of unions, anti-poverty organizations and environmental NGOs ‘committed to join efforts to fight energy poverty and defend the right to renewable energy for all’, in part through ‘the recognition of affordable energy as a basic human right in EU legislation’ (European Anti-Poverty Network, 2017). Also of significance is the European Energy Poverty Task Force, which combines the efforts of a multinational company, think tank and charitable foundation so as to ‘improve people’s day-to-day lives, while offering concrete solutions to tackle climate change’ (Schneider Electric, 2017).

The rising prominence of energy poverty within European policy and science agendas is likely to catalyse a new tide of discussion and deliberation. Ongoing processes of low-carbon transition have significant social justice implications, many of which intersect with key energy poverty concerns. A number of open questions have yet to be resolved, however. It remains unclear how energy poverty relates to wider dynamics of economic and political restructuring. Also, there is uncertainty over the manner in which energy poverty both affects and is reflected in household consumption practices, as well as existing vulnerabilities and forms of deprivation. There is a need to understand how spatial patterns of energy poverty map onto existing inequalities within and among cities, regions and countries, in light of the known economic and infrastructural embeddedness of the condition. Last but not the least, the link between energy poverty and processes of systemic change in the energy sector is poorly theorized in the social science literature—especially when it comes to the manner in which processes of socio-technical change create spatially embedded forms of inequality.

PURPOSE OF THE BOOK

This book aims to both consolidate and advance debates on European and global energy poverty, by exploring the political and infrastructural drivers and implications of the condition across a variety of spatial scales. It stems from a five-year research programme centring on the European Research Council-funded Energy Vulnerability and Urban Transitions in Europe research project (Energy Vulnerability and Urban Transitions, 2017b), which aims to generate a conceptual shift in the mainstream theorization of domestic energy deprivation—away from the conventional focus on poverty, access and energy efficiency, onto more complex and nuanced issues of resilience and precariousness. The book thus highlights the need for a geographical conceptualization of the different ways in which household-level energy deprivation both influences and is contingent upon disparities occurring at a wider range of spatial scales. There is a strong focus on the relationships among energy transformation, institutional change and place-based factors in determining the nature and location of energy-related poverty and vulnerability.

Within its overarching purpose, the book explores how patterns and structures of energy poverty have changed over time, as evidenced by some of the common measures used to describe the condition. In part, this means exploring the makeup of energy-poor demographics across various social and spatial cleavages. I thus touch upon the regional differences that characterize domestic energy deprivation. More broadly, the book argues that energy sector reconfigurations are both reflected in, and shaped by, various domains of social and political organization, especially in terms of creating poverty-relevant outcomes.

Underpinning all of these aims is a wider argument that the inequalities generated by processes of energy system restructuring have a strong geographical component, as they involve spatial and material formations in addition to income deprivation. I contend that the multidimensional nature of energy poverty makes it difficult to capture the phenomenon via a single indicator, thus suggesting that existing measures can only depict individual facets and experiences associated with the predicament. Following Bouzarovski et al. (2017), I argue in favour of unravelling the wider political and spatial implications of energy poverty in contexts where this condition encompasses a wide range of demographic and spatial strata. This starts from the premise that, despite the recognition that indoor environments represent fluid and open spaces that are connected to broader social and ecological systems (Biehler & Simon, 2010), mainstream work on the dynamics of domestic energy deprivation has largely focused on a relatively narrow range of explanatory factors within the home—particularly micro-economic affordability, as well as the thermal efficiency of the dwelling, heating system or appliances (Boardman, 2010). There is a need, therefore, for establishing how energy poverty is embedded in the broader system of infrastructural provision (Coutard, 2002; Marvin, 2012) and institutional change (Harrison & Popke, 2011) while simultaneously affecting both the consumption structure and state policies that characterize energy flows.

ENERGY POVERTY REVISITED 5

The book moves towards a conceptualization of domestic energy deprivation as a systemic issue that cuts across wider material and policy configurations involved in the provision of housing, the regulation of the energy sector and day-to-day political decisions. The chapters that follow, therefore, explore the embeddedness of energy poverty in socio-spatial path dependencies and reform approaches and its influence on the structure of energy demand as a result of household practices. I am also interested in the relationship between domestic energy deprivation, on the one hand, and the conduct of political debates and government decisions, on the other. More broadly, I hint at the infrastructural and political challenges that underpin the emergence of a common European energy policy. Here, my theoretical approach is predicated upon the emergent field of ‘energy geographies’ (Calvert, 2015; Pasqualetti & Brown, 2014), which highlights the importance of contingencies such as place, territory, path dependency and uneven development in shaping resource flows and consumption practices alike (Bridge, Bouzarovski, Bradshaw, & Eyre, 2013). Research in this burgeoning domain has provided multilayered accounts of global patterns of energy extraction and demand, as well as the spatial implications of socio-technical transitions towards a low-carbon and sustainable future (ibid.). I also utilize ideas from ‘assemblage thinking’ (Anderson & McFarlane, 2011; DeLanda, 2006) to argue in favour of conceptualizing energy vulnerability in the EU as a heterogeneous mix of material, technical and institutional components with specific territorial ramifications.

Throughout the book, I highlight the importance of demand-side energy services in shaping both the experience and understanding of energy poverty. As part of this, I focus on the broader injustices throughout the energy chain, so as to move beyond one-dimensional analyses solely dedicated to markets or ‘the state’ as relevant actors (Bouzarovski, Bradshaw, & Wochnik, 2015). The book thus pays central attention to the EU’s policy role in regulating energy as a complex multisectoral issue, thus sustaining the functions that it provides for final consumers (ibid.).

STRUCTURE OF THE BOOK

The remainder of the book consists of four chapters. In Chap. 2, I explore the multiple definitional issues surrounding energy poverty, vulnerability, transitions and justice, while laying out the conceptual framework that has informed my approach towards this book and the research leading up to it. Chapter 3 of the book explores the wider political context in which energy poverty is being addressed, scrutinizing the evolution and functioning of relevant policy landscapes at the EU level. In order to unpack the European ‘infrastructural divide’™—understood as an amalgamation of social and technical relations that is expressed as a set of geographical differences across a variety of scales—Chap. 4 explores how a combination of social, economic and spatial factors has created a landscape of energy vulnerability in Europe. The chapter also includes a review of energy poverty in various national, regional and urban contexts, focusing on a set of Central and East European countries where energy poverty is widespread. The wider implications of household coping practices and practices of fuel switching are also mentioned in this context. The concluding chapter returns to the aims of the book by emphasizing how the rise and persistence of energy poverty are embedded in wider political and spatial relations, as well as the manner in which various policy decisions are helping dismantle inherited and existing socio-technical divisions in Europe and beyond.

Anderson, B., & McFarlane, C. (2011). Assemblage and geography. Area, 43, 124-127.

Biehler, D. D., & Simon, G. L. (2010). The great indoors: Research frontiers on indoor environments as active political-ecological spaces. Progress in Human Geography, 35, 172-192.

Boardman, B. (2010). Fixing fuel poverty: Challenges and solutions. London: Routledge.

Bouzarovski, S., Bradshaw, M., & Wochnik, A. (2015). Making territory through infrastructure: The governance of natural gas transit in Europe. Geoforum, 64, 217-228.

Bouzarovski, S., Herrero, S. T., Petrova, S., Frankowski, J., Matoušek, R., & Maltby, T. (2017). Multiple transformations: Theorizing energy vulnerability as a socio-spatial phenomenon. Geografiska Annaler: Series B, Human Geography, 99, 20—41.

Bouzarovski, S., & Petrova, S. (2015). A global perspective on domestic energy deprivation: Overcoming the energy poverty—fuel poverty binary. Energy Research & Social Science, 10, 31—40.

Bridge, G., Bouzarovski, S., Bradshaw, M., & Eyre, N. (2013). Geographies of energy transition: Space, place and the low-carbon economy. Energy Policy, 53, 331-340.

ENERGY POVERTY REVISITED 7

Calvert, K. (2015). From ‘energy geography’ to ‘energy geographies’ Perspectives on a fertile academic borderland. Progress in Human Geography, 40, 105-125.

Coutard, O. (2002). The governance of large technical systems. London: Taylor & Francis.

DeLanda, M. (2006). A new philosophy of society: Assemblage theory and social complexity. London/New York: Continuum.

Energy Vulnerability and Urban Transitions. (2017a). EVALUATE team to host new European energy poverty observatory. http://wp.me/p3gnoe-DL. Retrieved September 1, 2017.

Energy Vulnerability and Urban Transitions. (2017b). The EVALUATE project. http://urban-energy.org/evaluate. Retrieved September 1, 2017.

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Harrison, C., & Popke, J. (2011). ‘Because you got to have heat’: The networked assemblage of energy poverty in Eastern North Carolina. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 101, 1-13.

Hilbert, A., & Werner, M. (2016). Turn up the heat! Contesting energy poverty in Buffalo, NY. Geoforum, 74, 222-232.

Kim, J. S., Lee, I. H., Ahn, Y. H., Lim, S. E., & Kim, S. D. (2016). An analysis of energy consumption to identify urban energy poverty in Seoul. International Journal of Urban Sciences, 20, 129-140.

Liu, E., Judd, B., & Santamouris, M. (2017). Challenges in transitioning to low carbon living for lower income households in Australia. Advances in Building Energy Research, 0, 1-16.

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Maxim, A., Mihai, C., Apostoaie, C.-M., & Maxim, A. (2017). Energy poverty in Southern and Eastern Europe: Peculiar regional issues. European Journal of Sustainable Development, 6, 247.

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Scarpellini, S., Sanz Hernandez, M. A., Llera-Sastresa, E., Aranda, J. A., & Lopez Rodriguez, M. E. (2017). The mediating role of social workers in the implementation of regional policies targeting energy poverty. Energy Policy, 106, 367-375.

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Chapter 2

Abstract This chapter outlines past and current definitional issues at the nexus of energy poverty, energy vulnerability, energy justice and energy transitions. It traces the historical development of scientific understandings centring on these topics, while exploring their interactions and interdependencies. The chapter starts from the multiple definitional controversies surrounding fuel poverty and energy poverty, to then discuss the different ways in which notions of energy vulnerability and energy justice have enriched traditional understandings. The latter has been achieved, in part, thanks to a fuller appreciation of the services and production chains via which energy circulates across territories.

Keywords Energy poverty ° Energy vulnerability ° Energy justice ° Energy transitions ¢ Energy services

As I pointed out in Bouzarovski (2014), the nexus between energy and poverty has historically been riddled with conceptual discord. For a long time, politicians and scientists alike failed to recognize that a unique set of issues existed at the intersection of these two domains. A government minister in the UK infamously claimed that ‘people do not talk of “clothes poverty” or “food poverty” and I do not think that it is useful to talk of

© The Author(s) 2018 9 S. Bouzarovski, Energy Poverty, https: //doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-69299-9_2

“fuel poverty” either’ (Campbell, 1993, p. 58). The establishment of a clear ‘fuel poverty’ definition in the British academic and decision-making polity (Boardman, 1991) can therefore be considered a pioneering achievement: not only did it necessitate the creation of new state policy, but it also opened the path for scientific debate over the causes, components, symptoms and consequences of domestic energy deprivation that mattered when stipulating what the condition entails.

The official interpretation of fuel poverty in the UK—where this condition is principally seen as the inability to purchase affordable warmth—has proven remarkably resilient despite being challenged in various fora. In the British context, fuel poverty has traditionally been described as a situation in which a household needs to spend more than 10 per cent of its total income (before housing costs) on all fuel used to heat its homes to an acceptable level. Two aspects of this definition are especially significant, not the least in terms of the amount of controversy they have attracted: First, ‘needing to spend’ refers not to actual expenditure, but to a hypothetical level that is closely related, inter alia, with the thermal energy efficiency of the dwelling. Second, ‘acceptable level’ is taken to mean that the home is heated in line with the standards recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO)—18 °C for bedrooms and 20-21 °C for living rooms (Boardman, 2010).

The basic principles of this definition were challenged by a governmentsponsored review undertaken by John Hills (2012) at the London School of Economics. This extensive investigation, involving multiple stages of consultation with experts and advocacy organizations, concluded that the existing UK definition has made the fuel poverty measure too sensitive to movements in gas and electricity bills as well as ‘the precise assumptions made for what are seen as adequate temperatures for people to live at, and the incomes reported to a survey that is mainly not focussed on income measurement’ (Hills, 2012, p. 8). It proposed that the government adopt a new ‘Low Income High Cost’ (LIHC) indicator about the extent of fuel poverty, which would consider households poor if (i) their ‘required fuel costs’ are above the median level for the entire population; and (ii) spending that amount would leave them ‘with a residual income below the official poverty line’ (ibid., p. 9). However, the approach attracted a significant amount of controversy, since it led to a significant reduction in the projected number of fuel-poor households, against a background context where the government ‘cut overall support reaching the fuel poor in England by 26 per cent and cut the energy efficiency budget reaching fuel poor homes, the most effective long term solution for tackling fuel poverty, by 44 per cent’ (Jansz & Guertler, 2012, p. 2). These debates reflect a broader unease in the academic and policy community, concerning the methods and approaches for measuring the extent of energy poverty (Tirado Herrero, 2017; Maxim et al., 2016; Thomson, Snell, & Liddell, 2016).

In addition to the notion of ‘fuel poverty’—and as noted above—a raft of similar, but not entirely identical, concepts have been used to describe this condition in other settings, including, inter alia, notions of ‘energy precariousness’, ‘energy precarity’, ‘energy deprivation’. There also exist more narrow terms that refer to some of its symptoms, such as ‘cold homes’, ‘energy non-payment’ or ‘energy disconnection’ (Bouzarovski, 2014; Petrova, 2017; Wilhite, Shove, Lutzenhiser, & Kempton, 2000). However, one of the most common scientific understandings of ‘energy poverty’ is one that focuses not on issues of fuel affordability, but rather explores which factors determine the quality and type of energy services received in the home. As we highlighted in Bouzarovski and Petrova (2015), a number of international development organizations and scholars have been focusing on the persistent deficiency of energy infrastructure provision across large parts of Africa, Asia and South America. Despite a long history of international involvement and high-profile political attention, more than 1.2 billion people across the world still lack access to electricity, while a further 2.8 billion have no choice other than traditional biomass for cooking and heating (World Bank, 2014).

Energy poverty in the Global South has received significant academic and policy attention (Gunningham, 2013; Pachauri & Spreng, 2004; Sagar, 2005), often as a result of its extensive impacts on well-being and health: the inability to access modern fuels in the home means that households are often forced to rely on open fires, which in turn leads to high levels of indoor air pollution. Thus, fumes and smoke from open cooking fires are estimated to contribute to the deaths of 1.3 million people per year, predominantly women and children (Gonzalez-Eguino, 2015). These circumstances are deemed to exert significant impacts on issues such as personal safety, household time budgets, labour productivity and income (Elias & Victor, 2005). As such, energy poverty is a highly gendered problem, with women bearing the brunt of the consequences of inadequate energy access, while suffering from systemic discrimination as well as decreased access to resources and decision-making (Abdullahi, 2017; Clancy, Ummar, Shakya, & Kelkar, 2007; Kumar & Mehta, 2016; Pachauri & Rao, 2013).