Health Crisis, First Lockdowns and Vulnerabilities to Energy Poverty by Rachel Guyet

CIFE Policy Paper no. 110

"Lessons to leave no one in the dark": The lockdowns imposed during the COVID-19 crisis had a revealing effect on energy vulnerabilities and on the need to consider access to energy as an essential service. But they also weakened new social groups who started to struggle with paying their energy bills. Relief measures introduced by governments and utilities in Europe illustrated how access to energy became a topic high up on the national agenda during the lockdown. However, vulnerable energy consumers require longer-term support if the aim is to address energy poverty in a more structural, sustainable and fairer way at EU, state and market level.

Rachel Guyet is Director of the Master in global energy transition and governance at CIFE. She also teaches at the European campus of Sciences Po in Dijon. Her research fields are energy poverty and energy transition at local level. She is member of the ENGAGER network and of the industrial chair HOPE on energy poverty. She is also member of the Energy group at CERI-Sciences Po.

Read the newest CIFE Policy Paper by Rachel Guyet