Energy poverty, i.e. difficulty in buying essential energy products, affects millions of households and is a significant challenge for the European Union, given the ambitious objectives of the energy transition. This work analyses the European dimension of the problem by using EU Household Budget Survey data (EU-HBS) for the years 2010, 2015 and 2020 and developing an indicator that evaluates high energy costs for households in economic difficulty (Low Income High Cost - LIHC).
Energy poverty affected around 14 per cent of the European population on average in 2015, almost one fifth of the population in France, Germany and Spain and 7 per cent in Italy. An insufficient data harmonization process and the lack of essential information (such as the amount of energy expenditure) limit the comparison between countries and the construction of a European indicator; the quality of data collected by current surveys needs to be improved.
