Poverty and social exclusion: review of international evidence on fuel poverty

They concluded that the Welsh Government’s actions, in particular the investment in energy efficiency, seemed to have helped to reduce the levels of estimated fuel poverty but more needed to be done to demonstrate that particular programmes, such as the Warm Homes programme, directly led to reductions in fuel poverty (WAO, 2019). [...] To estimate household fuel costs, the required energy consumption of a household is combined with the known fuel price for the method of payment used by the household and the location of that household in Wales. [...] Although there exist a range of different definitions and measures, key features include the imbalance between the energy costs required to cover the basic energy needs of a home and the income of the family living in it, and how the cost of meeting basic energy needs drag lower income households into, or further into, poverty. [...] Home energy efficiency improvements Reducing energy consumption through improving the energy efficiency of homes is often the most cost-effective way of making a sustained reduction in household energy costs and reducing the risk of fuel poverty (DECC, 2012). [...] However, not all of the policy levers required to tackle the causes of fuel poverty are within the control of the Welsh Government, such as key elements of social security and regulation of the energy market, and some of the drivers of fuel poverty need to be addressed at the UK level.