FPRN bulletin – 25th September 2023


25 September 2023

Welcome to our email bulletin.

The FPRN email bulletin is a semi-regular email highlighting a handpicked selection of recently published research and other knowledge outputs in the area of fuel/energy poverty from around the world. The aim is to share this emerging knowledge more widely and to help generate discussion across the network.

If you have any issues accessing the below articles, or you have articles, research or other information we could share, please contact newsletter@fuelpovertyresearch.net

Recent webinar: Smart homes & fuel poverty in Australia: improving outcomes or locking in vulnerabilities? Click here for the video.

It's not as easy as ‘heat or eat’ - Exploring the intersecting vulnerabilities of energy and food in domestic practices in Australia (ScienceDirect)
Bhavna Middha; Nicola Willand (2023)
 Academic Paper  Open Access 

This paper illustrates that in Australia heating and eating are intertwined, interdependent and shaped by coping strategies that seek to balance essential materials requirements and meanings. The study highlights how the dynamic co-relations between energy and food social practices, social support services and infrastructures shape wellbeing, through access to retrofits, nutrition, and care and are potential sites of intervention and discusses novel ways of mitigating tensions between food and energy insecurity.

Resilience is not enough: The mental health impact of the ongoing energy crisis in South Africa (pdf)
Maria C. Marchetti-Mercer (2023)
 Academic Paper  Open Access 

This paper explored the impact on mental health from energy load shedding in South Africa and discusses implications for policy makers in addressing this issue.

Hard-to-reach energy users: An ex-post cross-country assessment of behavioural-oriented interventions (ScienceDirect)
Luis Mundaca; Sea Rotmann; Kira Ashby; Beth Karlin; Danielle Butler; Miguel Macias Sequeira; João Pedro Gouveia; Pedro Palma; Anna Realini; Simone Maggiore; Mariëlle Feenstra (2023)
 Academic Paper  Open Access 

This paper presents a systematic comparative cross-country assessment of nineteen case studies, implemented in eight countries of hard-to-reach (HTR) energy users. The results highlight that greater attention must be paid to both the integration of behavioural science methods into HTR interventions, and the systematic analysis of heterogeneity in future HTR-related energy research.

Finding the fuel poor and framing better policy (pdf)
J Palmer; B Boardman; N Terry; T Fawcett; U Narayan (2023)
 Report  Open Access 

This report uses data from smart prepayment meter customers to explore how the UK Government can best target fuel poverty support to those in greatest need, and to describe the minimum level of support needed to prevent serious suffering this winter.

Excluded despite their support - The perspectives of energy-poor households on their participation in the German energy transition narrative (ScienceDirect)
Florian Hanke; Katrin Grossmann; Leona Sandmann (2023)
 Academic Paper 

This paper presents outcomes from a document analyses and in-depth interviews with 35 German households to explore how the energy poor perceive the sustainability narrative associated with the German energy transition. The analysis reveals a number of household types with a range of implications for policy making and how this will be required to reduce exclusion of some households.

Energy and the social contract: From “energy consumers” to “people with a right to energy” (pdf)
George Jiglau; Marlies Hesselman; Audrey Dobbins; Katrin Grossmann; Rachel Guyet; Sergio Tirado Herrero; Anaïs Varo (2023)
 Academic Paper  Open Access 

In this review article the authors explore essential underpinnings of a rights-based approach to energy and connecting this to the broader scope of the social contract. They argue that there is a need to shift the paradigm from energy as a commodity purchased by consumers from markets towards energy as a right of people.

This email newsletter is produced by the Fuel Poverty Research Network. For more news and events visit our website.