H2020 projects SocialWatt and ENSMOV join forces, making use of both projects’ learnings to deliver policy recommendations to improve the consideration of energy poverty through Article 7 of the Energy Efficiency Directive (EED).
Article 7 of the EED specifically requires European member states to take into account the need to alleviate energy poverty in their design of Article 7 measures, but this requirement is not universally adopted.
The briefing recommends that the provision on energy poverty in Article 7 should be fully implemented and, further, that the distributional equity – or who pays for and who benefits – from the measures delivered under Article 7 should be assessed, and measures put in place to address distributional inequities.
More broadly, the climate and social goals within EED Article 7 and the wider European package must be better aligned.