Targeted investments to address energy security and energy poverty

The energy crisis in Europe following the war in Ukraine has put a high burden on many consumers with energy expenditure now taking up a substantial share of their income. For low-income households in particular the situation worsened considerably. Governments reacted by introducing compensation schemes of various sorts, mostly non-targeted. The objective of this study is to gain an understanding of how national governments can better help their citizens prepare for the coming two winters (and also potentially extreme-temperature summers) by targeting public resources at energy efficiency and renewable energy measures, which nonetheless are not in contradiction with long-term measures leading to net zero emissions and can be rolled out to a large number of households. The study focuses on seven countries (France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Greece, Romania and Hungary)