Fuel poverty

A household is said to be in fuel poverty when its members cannot afford to keep adequately warm at a reasonable cost, given their income. The term is mainly used in the UK, Ireland and New Zealand, although discussions on fuel poverty are increasing across Europe, and the concept also applies everywhere in the world where poverty may be present. A household is said to be in fuel poverty when its members cannot afford to keep adequately warm at a reasonable cost, given their income. The term is mainly used in the UK, Ireland and New Zealand, although discussions on fuel poverty are increasing across Europe, and the concept also applies everywhere in the world where poverty may be present. In the UK, fuel poverty is defined by the Warm Homes and Energy Conservation Act as: “a person is to be regarded as living 'in fuel poverty' if he is a member of a household living on a lower income in a home which cannot be kept warm at reasonable cost”.Statistically, this used to be defined as a household needing to spend more than 10% of its income to maintain an adequate heating regime. However, definitions of 'income' and 'adequate heating regime' vary between UK Government and Devolved Administrations. A new, more complex definition of fuel poverty is now used in the UK, based on the Hills review.This gave the following definition: fuel poverty is now defined as when a household’s required fuel costsare above the median level, and if they were to spend what is required, then the household would be left with a residual income below the official poverty line. Additionally, a Fuel Poverty Indicator has been created, which shows how far into fuel povertyhouseholds are, not simply if they are in poverty or not. In Eastern Europe (transition economies), the term energy poverty is sometimes used instead. However, this use of the term (which is about a lack of access to energy services due to economic poverty) can be confused with indicating a lack of any access to energy infrastructure, as has been used by the World Economic Forum when establishing its Energy Poverty Action (EPA) initiative in 2005 to address energy poverty in the developing world by implementing electrification schemes (grid-extension and off-grid).