Alleviating household energy poverty in Europe

Expected Impact:Proposals should present the concrete results which will be delivered by the activities and demonstrate how these results will contribute to the topic-specific impacts. This demonstration should include a detailed analysis of the starting point and a set of well-substantiated assumptions, and establish clear causality links between the results and the expected impact.

Proposals submitted under this topic should demonstrate how they will contribute to the reduction of energy poverty for the targeted households (Scope B) and the effective implementation of the regulatory framework and development of successful coordination structures (Scope A), which can be replicated in other regions or Member States. Prebound/rebound effects should be taken into account and reported on, where relevant.

Depending on the scope and as relevant, proposals should demonstrate how they will contribute to:

• Improved collaboration and knowledge exchange between different levels of public authorities and of social intermediaries involved in the coordination structures.
• Increased understanding and expertise in the public authorities in charge of implementing relevant EED (recast) provisions.
• More effective and coherent implementation of provisions, including better planning, design and evaluation of energy poverty related policy measures.

Proposals should quantify their results and impacts using the indicators provided for the topic, when they are relevant for the proposed activities. They should also propose indicators which are specific to the proposed activities. Proposals are not expected to address all the listed impacts and indicators. The results and impacts should be quantified for the end of the project and for 5 years after the end of the project.

The indicators for this topic include:

• Number of energy poor households with reduced energy costs.
• Number of residential multi-apartment buildings renovated.
• Number of governance and decision-making structures adapted for residential multi-apartment buildings to facilitate energy renovation investments.
• Number of agreements concluded between homeowners and tenant associations demonstrating commitment to energy renovation investments.
• Number of energy poverty observatories and coordination structures established.
• Quantified multiple benefits, where relevant, for energy poor households, such as improved physical and mental health, comfort and indoor environment, better indoor air quality, improved social inclusion, reduced public health expenditure.
• Number of energy poor consumers benefitting from the activities.
• Number of legislative or implementing acts, policies or strategies created/adapted on energy poverty.
• Other environmental impacts such as reduction of the production of harmful substances.

Proposals should also quantify their impacts related to the following common indicators for the LIFE Clean Energy Transition sub-programme:

• Primary energy savings triggered by the project in GWh/year[1].
• Final energy savings triggered by the project in GWh/year.
• Renewable energy generation triggered by the project (in GWh/year).
• Reduction of greenhouse gas emissions (in tCO2-eq/year).
• Investments in sustainable energy (energy efficiency and renewable energy) triggered by the project (cumulative, in million Euro).

Funding rate

Other Action Grants (OAGs) — 95%

Objective:In recent years, European households have continued to spend an increasing share of income on energy, leading to higher rates of energy poverty[2] and negatively affecting living conditions, well-being and health. Most recent estimates suggest that 10.6% of Europeans are unable to keep their homes adequately warm[3]. Following surges in energy prices, the number of energy poor households overburdened by their energy costs is on the rise. These higher prices, combined with low incomes and poor energy efficiency of buildings and appliances, are root causes of energy poverty. Moreover, the increased occurrence of extreme summer heatwaves in recent years is further exacerbating the challenges faced by energy poor households and increasing household cooling needs. In addition to its causal multidimensionality, the phenomenon cuts across different policy sectors beyond energy, such as health, housing and social policy, requiring coordinated, holistic efforts at all governance levels, and involving different sectoral actors.

The European Green Deal[4] sets out to ensure an energy transition that is socially just and inclusive. In accordance with the Fit for 55 package, and in particular the recast Energy Efficiency Directive (EED)[5], Member States shall take appropriate measures to empower and protect energy poor people and implement energy efficiency improvement measures as a priority among people affected by energy poverty, vulnerable customers, people in low-income households and, where applicable, people living in social housing. In addition, the EED (recast) underlines the need to address the split incentive dilemma and remove barriers to energy efficiency measures in multi-owner properties. To ensure more coordinated action on energy poverty, an EC Recommendation on Energy Poverty and accompanying Staff Working Document further set out a series of measures and policies that can be adopted[6].

In this context, increasing the uptake of building renovation measures, including cooling solutions, can bring significant long-term benefits to energy poor households, and lead to lower energy bills and improved living conditions. Efforts should focus on offering support to overcome barriers to the uptake of renovation measures in residential multi-apartment buildings requiring coordinated action amongst homeowners and tenants, as well as supporting relevant actors, including public authorities, in designing longer-term strategies and coordination frameworks to mitigate energy poverty at different governance levels, including dedicated financing schemes specifically addressing energy performance improvements for energy poor households.

Scope:Actions should contribute to actively alleviating energy poverty and build on the tools, indicators and resources of existing initiatives, such as the Energy Poverty Advisory Hub[7] and the energy poverty pillar of Covenant of Mayors[8].

Proposals are encouraged for actions with an overarching focus on alleviating summer energy poverty and/or actions focusing on geographic areas with less developed energy poverty alleviation measures and frameworks.

The proposed action should cover only one of the two scopes below, either Scope A or Scope B of the topic. The scope addressed should be specified in the proposal introduction. In case of Scope A, actions can address one or both sub-scopes.

Scope A: Policy and coordination support to public authorities and stakeholders

• Actions should support national, regional and/or local authorities and societal intermediaries in setting up long-term, cross-sectoral coordination structures to tackle energy poverty. The coordination structures should foster cross-departmental and vertical collaboration across national, regional, and local government structures and social intermediaries, and could include setting up long-term national energy poverty observatories[9]. Where national coordination structures or observatories already exist, the proposal should clearly demonstrate the need for, and added value of, any new coordination structures. To facilitate the set-up of such structures and build the necessary organisational expertise, the proposed action should also include the delivery of capacity-building activities for the national, regional and/or local authorities and societal intermediaries involved in the coordination structures. The actors involved are expected to represent all relevant sectors (e.g. energy, social, health and housing) to ensure a holistic participatory approach to the alleviation of energy poverty in the long term and to improve social cohesion.
• Deliver tailored policy support to national authorities on the implementation of relevant provisions of the EED (recast)[10] to allow authorities to design and take concrete policy level actions to empower and protect energy poor households. The proposed action should provide public authorities with support and advice on e.g. regulatory, funding and technical aspects to help analyse their national policy mix, and to combine, contextualise and pull the different energy poverty-related provisions together to allow for the effective and coherent planning, design and improvement of energy poverty alleviation strategies and measures at the national level. In doing so, the action should ensure the involvement and mobilisation of national authorities across different sectors and support these authorities to map out and evaluate the impact of different implementation options, taking into account the specific national needs and context on energy poverty.

It is expected that the relevant national/regional/local authorities and stakeholders such as consumer or social organisations, the housing sector, or healthcare providers are either directly involved or their concrete support and involvement is demonstrated in the proposal.

Scope B: Support for residential multi-apartment building renovation

Actions under Scope B should support the energy renovation of residential multi-apartment buildings with energy poor inhabitants, with a particular focus on reinforcing and adapting the governance and decision-making structures of building management and homeowners or tenants associations, tackling related regulatory framework barriers (e.g. property and/or rental laws), split incentives, and setting up and coordinating relevant support services. The renovation actions supported should take into account the ability of residents to remain in their homes after works, thereby avoiding so-called renovictions, and may also include renewable energy solutions.

It is expected that the homeowners or tenant associations and housing organisations, in particular, are either directly involved in the consortium or their concrete support and involvement is clearly demonstrated in the proposal.

The proposed actions should take into account multiple benefits from the energy efficiency and renewable energy measures for the different energy poor target groups, such as improved health, comfort, air quality, better social inclusion etc. Specific attention could be paid to particular groups which are more at risk of being affected by energy poverty or more susceptible to the adverse impacts of energy poverty, taking into account gender, where relevant. Proposals are not expected to develop new IT tools, databases or platforms, unless their added value compared to existing ones is justified, and their potential scale-up beyond the project convincingly addressed.

Proposals must be submitted by at least 3 applicants (beneficiaries; not affiliated entities) from 3 different eligible countries.

The Commission considers that proposals requesting a contribution from the EU of up to EUR 1.75 million would allow the specific objectives to be addressed appropriately. Nonetheless, this does not preclude submission and selection of proposals requesting other amounts.

• For actions addressing building renovation actions without a clear focus on energy poor households, please refer to LIFE-2025-CET-BETTERRENO.
• For actions addressing One-Stop-Shops for renovation, please refer to LIFE-2025-CET-OSS.
• For actions addressing support services for energy communities’ creation, please refer to LIFE-2025-CET-ENERCOM.

[1] According to studies, many energy poor households already consume less energy than average households. Therefore, in this topic, energy savings triggered could result from increased energy efficiency to achieve a minimum comfort level.

[2] In line with Article 2(52) of the EED (recast), ‘energy poverty’ means a household’s lack of access to essential energy services, where such services provide basic levels and decent standards of living and health, including adequate heating, hot water, cooling, lighting, and energy to power appliances, in the relevant national context, existing national social policy and other relevant national policies, caused by a combination of factors, including at least non-affordability, insufficient disposable income, high energy expenditure and poor energy efficiency of homes.

[3] Eurostat, June 2024.

[4] COM(2019) 640 final, including the Renovation Wave Strategy and Commission Recommendation (EU) 2020/1563 of 14 October 2020 on energy poverty.

[5] Directive (EU) 2023/1791 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 13 September 2023 on energy efficiency and amending Regulation (EU) 2023/955 (recast).

[6] Commission Recommendation (EU) 2023/2407 of 20 October 2023 on energy poverty (C/2023/4080) and Commission Staff Working Document (SWD/2023/647 final).

[7] Results of the predecessor of the Energy Poverty Advisory Hub, the European Energy Poverty Observatory, should also be considered, where relevant.

[8] Actions should also take into account the initiatives or support schemes set up under other relevant EU funding such as the Social Climate Fund or the Just Transition Mechanism.

[9] Commission Recommendation (EU) 2023/2407 of 20 October 2023 on energy poverty (C/2023/4080). A key element of such observatories should be the inclusion of a strategy ensuring that the observatories will be sustained after the end of the project.

[10] In particular Articles 2(52), 8-9, 22 and 24 of the EED (recast)