SCEPA

Energy poverty has been deemed a major challenge by the European Commission and “lifting vulnerable citizens out of it is an urgent task for the EU”. EU-surveys in 2021 found that energy poverty applied to up to 125 million citizens already. Due to recent geo-political events energy prices are record high, and energy poverty is rapidly increasing and intensifying. Proven measures to alleviate energy poverty are available but are only applicable in local conditions and unable to reach all off the growing target groups. Especially hard-to-reach vulnerable households require tailor-made approaches. 

Energy poverty is often just one of the multi-social problems households are dealing with and should therefore be addressed integral. SCEPA (Scaling up the Energy Poverty Approach) aims to contribute to a just and inclusive energy transition by better engaging more vulnerable households, reducing and alleviating energy poverty. Within the NWE partner areas currently over 3.5 mil. households are found to suffer from energy poverty. 

Instead of reinventing the wheel, SCEPA gathers and enhances existing effective energy poverty approaches in order to be able to upscale initiatives. Stakeholders in the project learn from each other and share their best practices to develop a Joint Action Strategy (JAS). The JAS provides nuanced details of what works for specific target groups in specific residential areas in NWE. The JAS is used for the development of Local Action Plans for the partner regions and cities. During the implementation of pilot activities (WP2 A4-A6), 3 types of pilots with 12 types of interventions are enhanced, tested and scaled up, reaching over 105.000 households. Via monitoring and evaluation, the JAS is updated and shared with SCEPA’s community of interest for replication. This way vulnerable households in the partner areas, public authorities and organisations beyond the SCEPA consortium looking to scale up their energy poverty approach will benefit.