Energy Divides in Europe: Closing Gaps in Understanding for Transformative Alleviation of Energy Poverty

Despite emphatic political rhetoric promising just energy transitions, the harsh reality of energy poverty in Europe remains a stark contradiction. Vulnerable communities are not only largely excluded and sometimes negatively impacted by the energy transition but are increasingly facing a reality where living without energy is their new norm due to worsening socioeconomic and infrastructural conditions, with significant societal impacts. These energy divides manifest in the use of alternative fuels for heating (such as firewood and household waste), forced energy rationing, and dangerous coping strategies. However, these issues are absent from mainstream indicators due to the dominance of narrow techno-economic frameworks that fail to account for the complexities of energy poverty, leading many people to fall through the cracks of measurement and policy. Drawing on an unprecedented combination of complexity theory, energy justice, policy science, phenomenology, behavioural science, data feminism, and intersectionality, EnCUENTA pursues five objectives: 1) Create a ground-breaking new multi-dimensional, multi-scalar theoretical framework of energy poverty that considers individual, institutional, and infrastructural factors; 2) Document a diverse range of energy poverty drivers and adaptive coping strategies across ten European locations; 3) Assess the gaps and data injustices found within official energy poverty indicators, and trial innovative new lived experience-derived indicators across 5 national surveys; 4) Trace the path dependencies that give rise to the current energy policy landscapes at the pan-European and national scales, and explore policymaker views and biases; 5) Accelerate inclusive policy design across Europe via experimental randomised controlled trials of policymaker debiasing interventions, alongside recommendations for institutional reforms and new indicators that are fit for purpose in ensuring no one is left behind in European energy policy.