Energy justice insights from energy poverty research and innovation experiences

It has been estimated that in the EU, some form of energy poverty affects around 50 million people. EU policies strive to tackle the issue as part of a just and inclusive energy transition, however, due to the complex origins of energy poverty and understudied impacts of energy interventions it is not always clear whether certain approaches result in fairer outcomes overall for the citizens involved. Through a sociotechnical lens, we aim to assess energy justice outcomes of a purposeful selection of EU-funded projects. We complement existing project reporting with a qualitative analysis that explores the relationship between household energy interventions and energy justice impacts. Our analysis derives a data and theory-driven framework for conceptualising energy justice in the context of energy poverty alleviation. Using this framework, we present results on the impacts of the energy interventions in the projects analysed. Our findings highlight the need for multidimensional justice aspects (knowledge, empowerment, transparency, well-being, environmental protection, etc.) to be considered when designing energy poverty alleviation (or any energy) interventions, if we are to promote justice-driven policy designs going forward. We also identified contextual socio-technical factors contributing to energy poverty that should be taken into account when designing funding calls and other policies. In particular, well-being impacts need to be given particular attention as they are highly diverse. Collaboration with grassroots organisations during funding calls may help to achieve this, as well as providing greater flexibility in project deliverables to take account of rapidly changing socio-technical factors. We recommend that social science methods (in particular qualitative approaches) be integrated into analysis of polices for energy poverty alleviation in order to adequately capture energy justice criteria and sociotechnical factors. Our findings may be useful to consider when defining energy justice criteria in other policy contexts.