Audits and interventions in homes experiencing energy poverty

Policies and Measures

The Barcelona Provincial Council organised audits and interventions in homes experiencing energy poverty. This is a cross-departmental initiative promoted by the areas of Social Welfare, Environment and Housing of the Provincial Council, which offers town councils actions to enhance the energy efficiency of homes experiencing energy poverty to reduce expenditure on basic utilities (electricity, water and gas) and enhance quality of life. Since it began, two editions were organised with the 2021 edition reaching almost 1,200 energy audits.

In line with the EU Renovation Wave and the EU Green Deal, the programme strives to:

Improve the energy efficiency of homes, and health and comfort conditions by conducting a home energy audit.
Reduce the costs of utilities and empower users, provide tariff-related advice to align contracts to actual needs.
Assist in procedures with supply companies to reduce spending on utilities.
Deliver training on efficient consumer habits and consumer rights and identify broader intervention needs to favour energy efficiency improvement.

The intervention is therefore executed by companies contracted by the Barcelona Provincial Council that coordinates and funds all aspects. The programme is an example of good practice of an inter-administrative model (provincial council and towns) and public-private cooperation, and reaches all towns within the province of Barcelona. The examination of social, health and energy-related aspects proposes specific solutions to align the intervention to the needs of each family and reductions in CO2 emissions to contribute to the goals of climate change mitigation. Ninety per cent (90%) of the beneficiaries consider the assistance received highly useful to improve their level of comfort at home.

The programme develops the following activities: Actions, timetable and meetings with facilitators from local authorities are planned. Two visits by energy efficiency and social intervention professionals in the beneficiaries’ homes are taking place. The visits include the collection of data on the social background of the beneficiaries, on the home, an energy assessment and the installation of basic elements for energy efficiency. The visits provide personalised advice for efficient consumption and guidance on adjusting contracts to meet the beneficiaries’ actual needs, and tariff-related processing steps to ensure the services contracted match their actual needs and reduce utility costs. A report is compiled on the actions carried out for the administration of each town. Aggregate reports are prepared on all actions undertaken in each town. Sessions are organised to present the outcomes of the interventions. The reports are uploaded to an online tool that allows actions and documents to be managed digitally and to link contractor companies, Barcelona Provincial Council and individual town councils.

With a budget of about 500,000 euros, it manages to: reach 5,000 people through visits and actions, carry out about 2,000 actions to optimise utility contracts, reduce the cost of their utility bills by 19%, save 225€/year per home on electricity bills and set up for free almost 23,000 energy efficiency elements. Potential challenges are related to the stakeholder’s involvement, contact with beneficiaries (potential scepticism about receiving home visits), information flow between social workers and beneficiaries and follow-up after the interventions. The main weaknesses were the limited timeframe and that the proposed improvements were not implemented during phase 2.

The partners of the project are: the local authority, university/research centre, La Factoria, Gestión y Consultoria (private energy services company), EGM Estalvi i Eficiència Energètica (private company), SM Sistemas Medioambientales (private company).