Study of energy poverty in the European Union: the effect of distributed generation

ABSTRACT

The objective of this work is to measure the energy poverty in the European Union through the construction of an Energy Poverty Index by means of the multivariant technique of factorial analysis. The index is calculated for the 28 member countries of the European Union in the years 2008 and 2017. Moreover, the effect of distributed generation renewable resources (such as photovoltaic, small hydro or micro wind) on energy poverty is studied. The obtained results show that Bulgaria, Rumania, Greece, Latvia and Lithuania are among the countries that display the highest index. The countries with the lowest index are Denmark, Sweden, Finland, the Netherlands and Slovakia, among others. The distributed generation contributes to reduce energy poverty in all countries. In fact, Ireland, France, Luxembourg, Slovenia, Finland and Sweden, have shown greater capacity than others to respond to changes in the distributed generation.

KEYWORDS:

• Energy poverty
• synthetic indicator
• factorial analysis
• distributed generation

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

¹ For example, by analyzing the current geographical distribution of the PV installed capacity in Spain (available at https://www.esios.ree.es/es/mapas-de-interes/mapa-instalaciones-fotovoltaicas), it should be noted that PV installations are widely spread around the country, so they are located close to the load and many are small in size.

² For example, Oldfield (2011) presented a qualitative review of literature on the potential role of intelligent communication technology, web-based standards, and smart grid technology to alleviate energy costs and improve access to clean distributed energy in developed and developing countries.

³ According to the Hills Report (DECC 2015) a home is considered in a state of energy poverty if the equivalent cost necessary in domestic energy to maintain a level of suitable comfort is over the average and if discounting that cost from their equivalent income, the result is an amount below the threshold of monetary poverty.

⁴ Average number of elements of material deprivation among the people with difficulties to make ends meet.

⁵ Percentage of the total of the EU28, based on millions of euros at current prices.

⁶ Refers to the structure of the expenditure on consumption.

⁷ The EPI_RDG has been calculated for the year 2017, since no data was available for all the variables considered in 2008.

⁸ Usually, 0.6 is taken as the value from which sample adequacy is acceptable.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Ministerio de Econom?a, Industria y Competitividad, Gobierno de Espa?a [ENE2016-80053-R].