Living with Energy Poverty: Perspectives from the Global North and South expands our collective understanding of energy poverty and deepens our recognition of the phenomenon by engaging with the lived experiences of energy-poor households across different contexts.
Understanding the lived experience of energy poverty is an essential component in the design of any effort to alleviate what is fundamentally a deep-rooted, multi-faceted, wickedly complex problem. This requires a nuanced understanding of the causal factors and the research methods that can respond to the flexible spatial and temporal nature of the condition, as well as its well-being and justice implications. Drawing together the expertise and connectedness of authors from the Global South and North, this book presents novel approaches to understanding the often hidden forms of domestic energy deprivation. Case studies from twenty countries provide critical perspectives on this phenomenon, while analysing the policy practices, government strategy, and sustainability implications of divergent manifestations. The book takes a multidimensional perspective, challenging the bias towards energy production and service provision, which often do not align with the aspirations and realities of energy households across global contexts, thus facilitating a useful dialogue on the nature of energy poverty.
The book is a timely source for policymakers, practitioners, and scholars seeking fresh, diverse insights into the everyday reality of energy poverty and wanting to better understand the challenges a people-centred, just energy transition can present.
About the Author: Paola Velasco Herrejón is a Marie Sklodowska-Curie actions (MSCA) Research Fellow in the Department of Technology Systems, University of Oslo, Norway. Her research adopts an interdisciplinary perspective to examine socio-technical aspects of the global energy transition and decarbonisation, focusing on well-being, energy poverty, participation, power, and social justice. She was a co-investigator of the Energy Measures H2020 project that aims to better understand the lived experience of energy poverty and to support energy poor households across seven European countries.
Breffní Lennon is a Research Fellow at the Cleaner Production Promotion Unit, Environmental Research Institute at University College Cork, Ireland. He is an environmental geographer researching the energy geographies of climate change and the energy transition. His research focuses on emerging cultural ecologies of place, human-environment dimensions to energy, and the intersectional experiences of citizens in relation to environmental and energy justice. He is a co-Principal Investigator of the Energy Measures H2020 project and co-investigator on the ENCLUDE H2020 project.
Niall Dunphy is a Senior Research Fellow in the School of Engineering and Architecture and the Environmental Research Institute at University College Cork, Ireland. Niall has over 20 years' experience in multidisciplinary research; he leads the Cleaner Production Promotion unit, a research group working at the intersection of science and engineering with the social sciences and humanities.
