New LIFE project to combat energy poverty kicked off in Athens

On September 3-4, partners of the new “Energy Poverty Nexus” project met in Athens for a kick-off meeting to discuss the cooperation of the next three years.

The LIFE-funded project features Estonia as one of the 7 pilot countries (in addition to Greece, Poland, Spain, Croatia, Hungary and Bulgaria) that will be taking a closer look at energy poverty. The goal of the NEXUS project is to use the following 3 years to create monitoring mechanisms for energy poverty, and work on solutions to reduce it. Each of the pilot countries will form a monitoring committee (“observatory"), which will share its experiences with partners and beyond at the end of the project.

CASS was represented at the kick-off meeting by Project Manager Pille Gerhold and Team Lead Anneli Saaroja, the soon-to-be-back Project Manager Hanna Laius joining via video call. To familiarise partners with our current local situation, Pille gave a presentation on energy poverty in Estonia.

“The kick-off meeting was very useful. We heard of partners’ local problems with heating and cooling energy poor homes, the upsides and downsides of using different energy sources, and regional differences, starting from large cities and ending with small sparsely populated marine islands,” said Pille to summarise the meeting.

Anneli added: “This project is the first of its kind, which brings together different countries and their experiences in monitoring and combating energy poverty. The expectations are high, because the observatory that’s to be created, in addition to our common toolset, gives us the opportunity to handle the problem in a systematic and data-based way. We see this project to have the potential to impact energy poverty policies in Estonia and Europe and offer solutions that will truly help people in their homes.”

The term “energy poverty” is used to describe the situation where a habitable room temperature or necessary energy services cannot be provided for a household. Europe has been discussing the topic for decades, but in today’s energy- and climate crisis, it is becoming a higher priority.

Within the NEXUS project, the University of Tartu is responsible for the creation of the Estonian energy poverty observatory and capacity building and outreach activities.

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NEXUS partners at the kick-off meeting. Photo: NEXUS project