Evaluation of schemes to tackle energy poverty

Two different decision-support tools have been fully developed and tested so far within the framework of SocialWatt, more specifically:

• SocialWatt Analyser - This tool supports the identification of energy poor households among utilities’ clients, based on real household energy consumption and cost data as well as other readily available data.
• SocialWatt Plan – This tool supports the evaluation of several energy efficiency and renewable energy actions/schemes and recommends the optimal ones to implement (in terms of cost and risk), in order to alleviate energy poverty.

The eight SocialWatt utility partners have used these tools to inform the development of their energy poverty action plans which will guide their energy poverty alleviation work for the duration of the project and beyond.

This report presents the utility partners’ analysis of energy poverty and the assessment of schemes to alleviate it, performed using the tools. Key lessons learnt on the role that calculation tools can play in identifying energy poor households and designing schemes are also presented.

The full report is available to download here.