EU and US Approaches to Address Energy Poverty: Classifying and Evaluating Design Strategies

Peter Heller, Tim Schittekatte, and Carlos Batlle

June 2024

Guaranteeing sufficient and affordable access to energy services is increasingly critical as climate change continues to accelerate, energy costs increase due to the need to meet decarbonization goals, and the trend in general inequality among citizens grows. In this paper, we develop an in-depth review of the design of energy poverty policies and programs in the US and the EU. We classify and assess the followed approaches based on four categories of strategical decisions: assistance, targeting, funding, and governance. We discuss the benefits and disadvantages of the different approaches followed in both contexts, extracting the most relevant lessons learned.