Energy Vulnerability and Urban Transitions

EVALUATE researcher awarded prestigious impact prize for early career research

Dr Harriet Thomson was awarded the Outstanding Early Career Impact Prize and £10,000 at the Economic and Social Research Council’s Celebrating Impact Awards during a ceremony held at Central Hall, London, on 21^st June 2017. The award was made in recognition of Harriet’s ground-breaking ESRC-funded PhD research and networking activities, which focused attention on the 54 million EU households who are struggling to achieve adequate levels of energy services in their homes.

When Harriet started her doctoral studies in 2011, there were no recent figures on the extent and nature of energy poverty in Europe, with the last comprehensive analysis conducted by Healy and Clinch (2002) using data from 1994-1997 for just fourteen EU countries. In addition, beyond work by Bouzarovski et al. in 2012, there were critical gaps in knowledge about the development and framing of European policies to address the problem. To address these gaps, Harriet undertook a multi-methods investigation, comprising qualitative analysis of policy documents spanning 2001 to 2014, and quantitative analysis of a new household-level index based on EU-SILC micro data.

Among the key impacts that Harriet achieved during her PhD and subsequently while working on the EVALUATE project are:

Her index of energy poverty across EU Member States made evidence-based insights more accessible to decision-makers, and provided new information on its drivers in different countries.
Her highlighting of substantial gaps in knowledge about EU energy poverty helped change how energy poverty is addressed in the EU. Previously opposed to tackling the issue, since 2014 the EU has invested more than €1 million in defining and measuring the problem.
She established the EU Fuel Poverty Network, now a leading online platform for information about fuel poverty, and a resource used by MEPs.
Harriet has influenced the development and framing of new EU policy approaches to energy poverty and advised European Commission-funded studies on energy poverty indicators. Her research featured in a 2016 UK House of Commons Library Briefing Paper, and an EU policy handbook, published by the Greens/European Free Alliance Group in the European Parliament.
As part of EVALUATE policy engagement, she advised the Socialist and Democrats Group in the European Parliament on its 2016 Energy Poverty Manifesto, leading to a new European Parliament resolution.
Harriet also developed a set of recommendations for modifying existing survey infrastructure to bring about more useable secondary statistical data. These recommendations have fed into work by Eurostat, and are informing applications for new surveys.
She led a successful pan-European consortium bid (with Professor Stefan Bouzarovski) to run the European Energy Poverty Observatory, which aims to transform knowledge of energy poverty in Europe, and measures to combat it.

In total 6 awards were made by the ESRC for: Early Career Impact; International Impact; Impact in Business and Enterprise; Impact in Public Policy; Impact in Society; and the Impact Champion. An overview of all winners and finalists can be found here: http://www.esrc.ac.uk/research/celebrating-impact-prize/impact-prize-winners-2017/

Impact Prize winners. Photo credit: ESRC, 2017

References and further reading:

Bouzarovski, S., Petrova, S., and Sarlamanov, R. (2012). Energy poverty policies in the EU: A critical perspective. Energy Policy, 49: 76–82.

Healy, J.D., and Clinch, P. (2002). Fuel poverty in Europe: A cross-country analysis using a new composite measure. Dublin: Environmental Studies Research Series, University College Dublin.

Thomson, H., Bouzarovski, S., Snell, C. (2017) Rethinking the measurement of energy poverty in Europe: a critical analysis of indicators and data. Indoor and Built Environment.

Thomson, H., and Snell, C. (2016) Definitions and indicators of energy poverty across the EU. In K. Csiba (eds.) Energy Poverty Handbook. Brussels: The Greens / European Free Alliance in the European Parliament.

Thomson, H., Snell, C. and Liddell, C. (2016) Fuel poverty in the European Union: a concept in need of definition? People, Place and Policy special issue international perspectives on fuel poverty, 10: 5-24.

Thomson, H. and Snell, C. (2013) Quantifying the prevalence of fuel poverty across the European Union. Energy Policy, 52: 563-572.

New EVALUATE paper: Spatializing Energy Justice

Stefan Bouzarovski and Neil Simcock have recently published a new EVALUATE paper, ‘Spatializing energy justice’. The paper appears in a Special Issue of the journal Energy Policy, ‘Exploring the Energy Justice Nexus’.

The paper introduces an explicit spatial vocabulary to understandings of energy justice. It highlights the geographic disparities in the risk and incidence of energy poverty, arguing that this is a key component of energy (in)justice. Such geographic disparities are reproduced through four mechanisms – termed landscapes of material deprivation, geographic underpinnings of energy affordability, vicious cycles of vulnerability, and spaces of misrecognition – that operate from the local to the global scale.

The paper’s findings add further weight to the belief that energy poverty is a distinct and severe form of (energy) injustice, acting as a reminder that its alleviation is a fundamental political duty rather than an optional act of benevolence. Furthermore, while lending some support to local and area-based energy poverty alleviation policies, the findings also indicate the need to intervene in the deeper, wider-scale processes and mechanisms through which spatial inequality and energy poverty (re)produced.

The paper is open access and is available to freely read and download. We can recommend the rest of the Special Issue, which contains an impressive set of conceptual and empirical papers.

EVALUATE presentations on energy poverty and gender

I recently had the opportunity to present results from the qualitative element of EVALUATE’s fieldwork to two very different audiences. First, I attended the ‘hopefulNESS’ 2017 conference in Tampere, Finland, where I presented some emerging findings on the gender aspects of energy poverty in the ‘Global North’ context – based on analysis and writing I have been doing in collaboration with Saska Petrova. Gender is an issue that has been widely explored in relation to the experience of energy poverty in the Global South, where it is well known that, for example, women disproportionately suffer the harmful consequences of inadequate access to electricity. However, in the industrialised nations of the Global North, gender is an issue that has (surprisingly) hitherto been unexplored. Our findings from the EVALUATE project begins to address this gap, elucidating some of the ways that gender is intertwined with how energy poverty is (often unequally) experienced within the home. The presentation received an excellent response from the audience, who really engaged with lots of insightful questions and comments, particularly in terms of the ‘co-constitutive’ relationship between energy poverty and household gender relations.

A week later I gave a similar presentation to a meeting of Greater Manchester Authority’s ‘Housing Retrofit Group’. Again there were some very insightful comments and suggestions from the audience, including issues around the control of household finances, the complexity of power and decision-making within a household, and the extent to which the findings apply to the UK context. The implications of the findings for UK policy-makers at a local and national level was also reflected upon.

It was really useful to present to such diverse audiences with different priorities and interests, but very encouraging that the topic really seemed to interest both groups. Saska and I will continue our work on the gender-energy poverty nexus – which we are very excited about as it is almost completely unexplored in the academic literature – with the aim of submitting a journal paper very soon. Watch this space for further updates!

An update on the energy poverty situation in Lithuania

The concept of energy or fuel poverty is still poorly known in policy and academic circles beyond a few EU member states that are more advanced in this (UK, Ireland). There are a few reasons to believe that Lithuania may be badly affected by this problem. Affordability of heating services primarily is a topic of heated discussions at multiple levels – from individual households to national policy-making debates. Nevertheless energy poverty (energetinis skurdas in Lithuanian) as a concept is still somewhat a novelty. The causes and consequences of energy poverty are not viewed systematically. Lithuanian Responsible Business Association hosted probably the first seminar on energy poverty in Lithuania on June 1^st, 2017.

Energy poverty is not a typical topic discussed in the forums of socially responsible businesses. This topic is a direct responsibility of some companies, e.g. energy companies, but at the same time energy poverty may be one of the key issues in understanding welfare and well-being in some countries and regions and, therefore, relevant to the responsible business community. Lithuania maybe one of the most affected countries by energy poverty among the EU member states. According to the EU Survey on Income and Living Conditions 31.1 % of inhabitants of Lithuania could not afford to keep their house adequately warm (second highest indicator among the EU countries after Bulgaria) and 17% reported to live in housing affected by dampness, draughts and leaks in 2015.

CURE’s Nora Mžavanadze gave a brief introduction to energy poverty definition, causes, consequences and policy applications – a systemic view of energy bills as a trap of poverty together with its implications for human health, productivity, air pollution, comfort, greenhouse gas emissions, energy security, public finance, economic development and even emigration. The second part of the presentation included a brief introduction to energy poverty related projects conducted by the researchers of CURE – European Energy Poverty Observatory, project EVALUATE and project COMBI. The last part of the presentation has opened up a few topics for a discussion on the aspects of energy poverty situation in Lithuania in relation to the latest legislation changes (see below a discussion on the legislation changes with implications for energy poverty).

Photo by Paulius Stonis, Lietuvos Energija

Mme Jūratė Cvilikienė, director of the Swedbank Finance Institute in Lithuania, presented the trends in household income and expenditure in the capitals of the three Baltic States – Vilnius, Riga and Talinn. According to Eurostat, on average 46% of household consumption expenditures in Lithuania are devoted to necessities – food, housing and transport. This figure stands at 52% in Latvia and 44% in Estonia. Swedbank Finance Institute conducted expenditure analysis of a hypothetical middle class family with two children living in the capital cities of the Baltic States. In Vilnius, household income would be around 1300 EUR/month, while their expenditure on utilities alone would stand at around 152 EUR/month during the heating season for a typical 70 m²flat. According to Eurostat, 82.3% of Lithuanians owned their accommodation, 10.1% lived in rented accommodation and 7.6% had mortgages. Utilities, food and transport (assuming public transport) would constitute 40% of household’s monthly income during the heating season.

Dr. Nerijus Rasburskis, ‎director of the Cogeneration Projects Division at Lietuvos Energija, Lithuanian state energy company, presented the actions taken to reduce the price of energy services from the supply and production side. To begin with Dr. Nerijus Rasburskis contrasted energy poverty with something that would qualify as energy famine referring to the on-going energy crisis in Ukraine. In the past few years Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia managed to accomplish a few national scale energy projects that have helped to reduce the effect of the so-called energy island of the Baltics – electricity power links to Finland (2014), Sweden (2015) and Poland (2015), a brand new gas terminal in Lithuania (2014). As a result of that electricity prices have decreased by 20% and natural gas prices have decreased by 30%. Nevertheless, Lithuania remains to be a net importer of energy. The country imports up to 80% of electricity and most of local electricity plants are morally and technologically out-of-date. Lithuania currently considers to build a few waste-to-energy plants that could decrease heat energy prices by a further 20%.

Photo by Paulius Stonis, Lietuvos Energija

Dr. Vygintas Sidzikauskas, independent energy expert and the chair of the Antimonopolistic Citizens’ Movement of Lithuania, focused on consumers’ perspective. District heating is well developed in Lithuania and enjoys a monopoly status. A typical flat owner connected to the district heating network does not exercise control neither over the heating levels, nor the heating bills. He emphasized that according to the EU principles, Lithuania will eventually have to comply with consumer’s right to choose in the heat energy market. Although access to energy infrastructure has improved greatly in the last few years (connection to gas, electricity networks), but energy service prices remain to be a problem. Although various mechanisms exist to ensure the public interest in this domain, he admitted we may have had a regulatory capture situation. In the recent court case, “Vilniaus Energija” was found to be charging unjust prices for heating and hot water services. The court found that inhabitants of Vilnius had been overcharged by over 100 million EUR during the period of 2010-2015. Dr. Vygintas Sidzikauskas emphasized the importance of transparency for the energy supply side and awareness raising on the energy demand side. He was optimistic about the perspectives of heat pump technologies in diversifying the heat energy sector of Lithuania. Dr. Vygintas Sidzikauskas emphasized the importance of energy efficiency calling it a fuel on its own. He quoted survey data which found that 3/4ths of Lithuanian households had already made some kind of energy efficiency investment on their own by 2009 even without state incentive programmes (most often replacing windows). He pointed to a delicate relationship between building envelope insulation and the demand for ventilation as one of the main societal concerns and obstacles in advancing building renovation programme. Ventilation equipment adds significantly to the renovation cost, and without it health of the inhabitants deteriorates.

Photo by Paulius Stonis, Lietuvos Energija

A short update on the energy poverty related legislation changes in Lithuania

The date of the seminar was very symbolic too. Lithuanian parliament has just passed a law that cancels preferential tariff of the value added tax on district heating and hot water services. This preferential tariff was launched to alleviate the heating bills temporarily in 2000, but has remained in force for over 15 years (a case of temporary becoming nearly permanent). Until now all governments found enough reasons to keep it intact due to the extent of the population affected (57% use district heating services). From June 1^st 2017 value added tax for these energy services jumped from 9% to a regular 21% applied to all other goods and services in Lithuania. It is likely that the public reaction to this change will reach its peak upon the receipt of the first heating bills in autumn.

To mitigate the price effect the parliament suggested to extend the existing subsidies to socially vulnerable households – the compensation for heating services will be available to households who pay at least 10% of their income for these services. This is in line with the internationally acknowledged threshold of energy poverty. Previously compensations for heating services have been calculated according to a different formula with a 20% threshold. It is expected that the number of those seeking compensations for heating services will increase significantly in autumn of 2017. Under the preferential 9% tariff, around 100 000 applicants received compensations for heating services under the threshold of 20% of income for energy services. Under the new policy of 21% tariff and 10% threshold of income for energy services, it is expected that the number of applicants will increase to 250 000. This may be the extent of energy poverty in Lithuania, but the figure has to be multiplied even further to account for size of household.

The preferential value added tariff for central heating and hot water services has been criticized by various experts for a few reasons. The preferential tariff applied to central heating and hot water discriminated against inhabitants of private houses who received no such preferential treatment and comforts of district heating. Lithuania is among TOP 5 countries in the world according to the share of inhabitants served by district heating services. The benefits of the subsidy would be shared among all users of district heating services, including those who could afford to pay the full price, but it would not be enough to ensure affordability to the most socially vulnerable. The second tier subsidies – individual household compensations would still be needed. Finally, the preferential tariff could be interpreted as a fossil fuel subsidy, that does not encourage energy efficiency investments. The news about abolished preferential tariff for district heating services has been received as good news by the energy efficiency advocates – the payback period of housing renovation has just decreased.

* See the earlier two blog posts by Nora Mzavanadze on energy poverty in Lithuania from 2014 here and here.

Energy poverty spring tour

ERSS conference location, Sitges. Photo by Harriet Thomson

This spring there have been several events focussed on, or related to, energy poverty, which EVALUATE team member Dr Harriet Thomson has had the opportunity to participate in. On 6^th March, Energy Action held their annual Fuel Poverty and Climate Action conference in Dublin. This day-long conference featured a range of speakers from academia, local government, energy companies, and energy regulators, with four keynote speakers: Denis Naughten TD, FR Sean McDonagh, Professor John Sweeny, and Dr Brenda Boardman. In a session focussed on European fuel poverty, Harriet outlined findings from the EVALUATE project and introduced our new European Energy Poverty Observatory project.

At the end of March, Harriet was invited to speak at a workshop organised by the European Policy Centre in Brussels, as part of their Energy Poverty Task Force. The workshop focussed on how to measure progress on lifting people out of energy poverty, with interventions from DG Energy (European Commission), a Member of the European Parliament, Trinomics, and the University of Stuttgart.

More recently, Harriet attended the 1^st International Conference on Energy Research and Social Science (ERSS), held in sunny Sitges, Spain. This was an exciting event to attend, particularly as several EVALUATE team members have a connection to the journal linked to this conference; Dr Harriet Thomson is an Associate Editor, Professor Stefan Bouzarovski sits on the Editorial Board, and Dr Neil Simcock recently guest edited a Special Issue entitled ‘Energy demand for mobility and domestic life: new insights from energy justice’.

On the first day of the ERSS conference, Harriet gave a presentation entitled ‘Re-visioning the measurement of energy poverty in Europe: a critical analysis of indicators and data’, which summarises a new article that was recently published in Indoor and Built Environment with Professor Bouzarovski and Dr Carolyn Snell. This presentation formed part of ‘Session 1: New Frontiers in Fuel Poverty Research’ and was chaired by Dr Lucie Middlemiss. One of the best things about the ERSS conference was seeing the huge diversity in work currently being undertaken worldwide on fuel poverty. Two presentations focused on the issue in Japan, another examined energy affordability in the United States, and a further three presentations looked at the lived experience of energy vulnerability, a comparison of approaches in England, France, and Ireland, and energy justice within the context of domestic retrofits. These presentations were further complemented by a session held two days later, entitled ‘Session 14: The complexities of energy and poverty’. This session also contained a range of interesting projects, including a talk by Dr Karen Parkhill on energy vulnerabilities as a result of welfare and employment policy reform, and Dr Sergio Tirado Herrero’s presentation on energy poverty, disconnections and transformative citizen action in Barcelona.

It has certainly been a good time for energy poverty researchers, with growing recognition and interest in the topic. Keep following this blog for updates on upcoming events in the summer, especially our energy poverty sessions at the RGS-IBG conference, and the second early career researcher symposium, to be held in conjunction with National Energy Action.

PhD studentship now available: New cityscapes of micro-energy storage

We are pleased to announce this unique opportunity to work on a fully-funded trans-discplinary research project at the University of Manchester.

Information and mobile technologies have been heralding a new wave of electrification in households, thanks to the increased use of batteries in particular. However, it is less known how the expansion of battery-based electric power across an ever-increasing range of devices is transforming people’s everyday lives, and by implication, the wider technical and cultural fabric of cities. Using original empirical research, this PhD project seeks to provide novel insights into the social and infrastructural dimensions of the new urban energy landscapes associated with battery use.

Please contact Professor Stefan Bouzarovski with any questions about the position. The studentship is expected to commence in the 2017/2018 academic year.

The studentship is available to British and UK-resident EU nationals only. More information is available here.

EVALUATE team to host new European Energy Poverty Observatory

A new information hub led by EVALUATE project researchers extends the reach and impact of existing research

This week saw the official launch of the European Energy Poverty Observatory (EPOV) – a new initiative supported by the European Union, aimed at providing a public hub for the gathering and dissemination of information on the extent and nature of domestic energy deprivation in Europe. The Observatory will collect and publish Europe-wide energy poverty data while serving as the focal point of an emergent network of policy-makers, research scientists, advocacy groups and community activists interested in the issue. It will aim to improve the state of the art on energy poverty detection, measurement and reporting by creating a public forum for the exchange of knowledge on the issue.

The Observatory is part of a growing drive to consolidate energy policy at the level of the European Union, reflected in the recent Energy Union and Clean Energy Package proposals. It is thus expected that the EPOV will become a decision-support tool for the significant amount of new European Union-wide energy policy, regulation and legislation that will be developed in the near future.

The Observatory itself is a vast organization, comprising a consortium of 13 universities, research institutes, companies and advocacy groups. More than 100 internationally-renowned experts are involved in its work via these organizations and EPOV’s independent Advisory Board.

The University of Manchester leads EPOV; Dr Harriet Thomson is its Project Manager and Professor Stefan Bouzarovski is the Observatory’s Chair. Both Stefan and Harriet are currently also heavily involved in the EVALUATE project, which means that EPOV directly builds on and extends EVALUATE’s findings. This particularly refers to the development of pan-European energy poverty indicators and definitions – a key theme in EVALUATE research to date (e.g. see here and here) – as well as the development of new knowledge exchange networks to improve scientific and policy knowledge on the issue.

Find out more about the observatory on its official website.

Addressing digital futures and the social impacts of energy efficient buildings

RMIT Europe has gathered a number of experts from academia and industry to a half-day workshop on November 28, 2016 – “The social impacts of digitally-enabled energy efficiency in buildings: shaping sustainable energy futures”. The participants discussed energy consumption trends in the residential buildings’ sector, the possibilities that digital technologies could bring in understanding these trends and also in achieving reductions in energy consumption. Social impacts arising as a result of energy efficiency, energy conservation and renewable energy measures in residential housing has been at the center of presentations and discussions.

The workshop was opened by Marta Fernandez, the Executive Director of RMIT Europe and chaired by Sergio Tirado-Herrero. Marta presented the work and results of the European Construction, built environment and energy efficient building Technology Platform (ECTP).

The first panel was started by Sarah Pink, the Director of the Digital Ethnography Research Centre and Distinguished Professor in the School of Media and Communication at RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia. With the help of digital ethnography methods Sarah advocates for insightful and informed policy interventions that can be willingly and creatively accommodated in every day routines of energy users instead of from prescriptive behavioral change models that have dominated public policy lately. Via digital ethnography methods Sarah looks for 3 points for intervention: (1) everyday improvisation in dealing with technologies; (2) making the home feel ‘right’ and constructing energy demand profiles and (3) movement through the home in creating everyday routines. To learn more about Sarah’s work please visit Energy and Digital Living website. It hosts a number of video diaries on domestic energy consumption. Sarah also works on documenting domestic water use. See the trailer of the Laundry Lives here.

Valeria Ferrando, the Head of the EU Research at the Integrated Environmental Solutions Ltd (IES), Glasgow, UK presented their digital solutions cloud for smart cities, smart communities and smart buildings and talked about how big data paired with citizen science could help to plan refurbishing and decarbonizing of entire communities and cities. IES has developed a tool called the Intelligent Communities Lifecycle, that can facilitate the public policy cycle for smart cities of vision, planning, implementation, monitoring and feedback. Glasgow Energy App project has helped to evaluate the status quo and develop a vision – it mapped the building performance in the whole of Glasgow, allowed checking the performance of a building in comparison with the other in the neighborhood and energy efficiency benchmarks; and suggested measures to improve energy performance. The use of this technology in project INDICATE has helped to develop a decision support tool for urban planners for a dynamic assessment of energy demand, supply and optimization when integrating various low-carbon solutions in the communities. Project Umbrella aimed to create a simple tool to allow users to assess their options with regard to energy efficiency retrofit measures in their buildings allowing to compare costs and other performance outcomes.

Adrian Joyce, the Secretary General of the European Alliance of Companies for Energy Efficiency in Buildings (EuroACE) talked about challenges ahead of the European building sector in rendering substantial energy consumption reductions in line with climate change commitments and the EU directives. There are 210 million buildings in the EU-28 and their occupied space is equivalent to the area of Belgium. The replacement rate of buildings is slow and 90% of buildings used today will still be used in 2050. Therefore, only an ambitious building sector renovation policy could deliver energy consumption reductions – see Renovate Europe Campaign. Adrian emphasized the need to set a long-term vision for the building sector in the EU, to spread the news of the good practice cases (such as Energiesprong in the Netherlands), the need to target different segments differently (private vs public, owned or rented, socially vulnerable, commercial sector and etc), to speed up the learning curve and bring down the costs of renovation. He also talked about associated co-benefits of building renovation recognizing that domestic energy consumers are not concerned about energy efficiency per se, but rather about energy bills, comfort, health. He recognized that communication about energy efficiency policy goals to the wider public has to avoid the term “energy efficiency” to be effective. He reflected on changing communication landscapes – how do we communicate the message of energy efficiency in the post-truth era when communicating facts does not get the message across anymore?

Isabel Lacave Azpeitia, a researcher and Project Manager at the Acciona Infraestructuras Technology Center spoke about energy efficiency and renewable energy projects that Acciona is managing in Spain, Peru, Mexico and Turkey. Isabel focused on discussing social engagement strategies with the direct beneficiaries of these projects and a wider community of stakeholders. She also presented accounts of social and other co-benefits as a result of implementation of such projects.

CURE’s Nora Mzavanadze delivered the last presentation on social welfare gains associated with energy efficiency improvement actions in the building sector based on progress of the COMBI project in assessing literature review, assessment methodologies and the first quantification attempts. Nora focused her talk on discussing the evidence of health outcomes in relation to the quality of housing and reviewed the extent of exposure to different health risks in housing in the EU-28.

Public seminar: Connecting national energy transitions with changes in urban energy systems

CURE will host a public talk entitled ‘Connecting national energy transitions with changes in urban energy systems’, by Professor Aleh Cherp. It will be held on the 1^st of December at 3pm, room G32 in Humanities Brigdeford Street. The event will be chaired by Nora Mzavanadze and followed by a wine reception.

Aleh Cherp is a professor in the Department of Environmental Sciences and Policy of Central European University (Hungary) and in the International Institute for Industrial Environmental Economics at Lund University (Sweden). His research areas include political economy of energy transitions and energy security. He currently leads the POLET (Political Economy of Energy Transitions) project which is part of the Energy and Society Intellectual Theme at CEU. In 2008-2012 he was the Convening Lead Analyst on Energy Security of the Global Energy Assessment. Prof Cherp has undertaken professional work for the European Environment Agency (EEA), NATO, OSCE, UNDP, UNICEF, WHO, the World Bank, and USAID among others. He was the Rapporteur of the Advisory Working Group on the Environment (including Climate Change) of the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) of the European Commission and a panel chair and an evaluator of the European Research Council. In addition to his research, Aleh coordinates a Masters’s program on Environmental Sciences, Policy and Management (formerly an Erasmus Mundus Masters course) jointly operated by 6 Universities including the University of Manchester. Aleh also runs a popular blog on academic productivity – ‘Macademic – Academic workflows on Mac‘.

Incidentally Aleh is also an alumnus of the University of Manchester having graduated with a MS degree in Pollution and Environmental Control in 1992 and a PhD degree in Environmental Impact Assessment from the Department of Planning of Landscape in 2000.

Aleh’s current research focuses on studies of energy security and energy transitions using the lens of political economy. His public talk at the University of Manchester will present his and his team’s attempts in defining and framing energy transitions from a theoretical standpoint. Energy transition as a concept stems from the practitioners’ and policy-makers’ world in response to various policy initiatives to transform the energy systems away from dependence on fossil fuels for many reasons, e.g. energy security, economic competitiveness, climate change among many others. Aleh will bring insights from energy transitions in Germany and Japan and will talk about the implications for urban energy transformations.

An abstract of Aleh’s talk is included below. We hope that Aleh’s come back to his Alma Mater will be pleasant and fruitful.

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There is no single theory of national energy transitions and the literature differs on how the vast existing knowledge could be best integrated. A recent study has proposed a meta-theoretical framework for the analysis of national energy transitions, which is based on the concept of co-evolution of semi-autonomous systems delineated by (a) energy flows; (b) energy technologies and (c) energy policies and governance arrangements. This framework uses Elinor Ostrom’s Institutional Analysis and Development (IAD) approach to bring together three perspectives: techno-economic with its roots in economics; socio-technical with its roots in sociology of technology; and political with its roots in political science. IAD provides a structure for systematically identifying and integrating variables and theories from the three perspectives for understanding continuity and change in national energy systems. This talk will explore the applicability of lessons from this framework and empirical comparative studies to urban energy transformations.

Short report on the 1st Catalan Congress on Energy Poverty

Last week, I had the pleasure of opening the 1^st Catalan Congress on Energy Poverty with a keynote presentation entitled ‘Fuel poverty: a common problem across the EU’. The Congress was held in Sabadell between 3^rd-4^th November, and had around 400 attendees from across industry, activist groups, local government, and academia. During my presentation I started by talking about how I got involved with the energy poverty field 7 years ago as a project management intern at an energy service company, and seeing the huge difference energy efficiency and renewable energy measures made to people’s lives. Next I talked about my earlier masters and PhD research on energy poverty policy and statistical indicators. Thereafter, my talk looked at the EU Fuel Poverty Network and how it has expanded rapidly since 2011 to become one of the leading networking websites for fuel poverty. The subsequent slides introduced the EVALUATE project and presented a selection of our research findings. The closing section of my talk considered the ‘missing links’ in tackling energy poverty, in terms of collaboration, research, and decision-making.

Across the two days, numerous parallel sessions and round table events were held featuring a range of diverse speakers, including four speakers from our recent early career researcher symposium held in Manchester. From these deliberations, two key issues were often discussed: firstly the difference between unregulated free electricity supply traders and regulated traders (who have to follow public service obligations) in Spain, and secondly, the decision by the Spanish Constitutional Court to suspend Catalonia’s energy poverty decree, a law that was established in 2013 to prevent household gas and electricity being cut off by energy suppliers during winter months. It was very evident that protection for energy poor and vulnerable consumers in Catalonia and Spain as a whole is bound up with broader political tensions and political manoeuvring. Within this context it was encouraging to see several high profile mayors, including Barcelona’s Ada Colau, give declarations on their commitment to addressing energy poverty.

Congratulations to Ecoserveis and partners for hosting such a successful event, hopefully it will become a regular fixture in future years and provide a catalyst for other large mixed stakeholder events elsewhere in Spain. For further information about the Congress see www.congrespobresaenergetica.cat and @CongresPE