Energy poverty impacts millions of people across Europe. A number of regions are taking part in EU-funded schemes to help them rise out of it.
What is energy poverty? Joaquín Villar, Head of Internationalisation & Innovation, Andalusian Energy Agency explains thes concept and the lessons that POWERTY brought to the regions that participated in it.
"It is also the case that many regions did not even define the concept of energy poverty," he says. "And this is important because if you do not incorporate this concept in your own regulations, it is difficult to articulate strategies to help you fight this problem. But basically, to understand it we could say that a family or a person affected by energy poverty is a family or a person who cannot afford the energy costs of their home.
"POWERTY is a European project where five regions have collaborated. The ultimate beneficiaries will be those vulnerable people from these five European regions of France, Bulgaria, Lithuania and the United Kingdom who also collaborated through the Fuel Poverty Observatory together with Andalusia.
"We have also learned that social projects are long-term projects that are not at all compatible with the timeframe of a European project. Another issue we learned was the educational component. Incorporating the two schools and the parents' associations of these two schools into the energy community was fundamental to really have the impact we wanted." he concludes.
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