Introduction

Energy poverty or energy vulnerability occurs when a person is unable to afford or obtain sufficient energy resources to fulfil their basic needs. It is a multidimensional phenomenon that arises not only from insufficient household income but also from broader structural factors, such as geographic and climatic conditions, household composition, gender, health status and age. Certain social groups are therefore more exposed to energy poverty and its consequences. Among them are households that include people with physical disabilities, as these often face disproportionately high energy needs and related costs. Approximately 27% of the EU population over the age of 16, equating to an estimated 101 million people, live with some form of disability. Of these, 24% are at risk of energy poverty, a rate significantly higher than that of the general population. 

People with disabilities face specific barriers that make them more likely to experience energy deprivation. Such vulnerability arises not only from lower incomes but also from higher energy needs, inaccessible or inefficient housing, and the absence of disability-sensitive support mechanisms. As a result, people with disabilities often find themselves caught in a cycle where poor living conditions worsen health outcomes, and deteriorating health further reduces their ability to afford adequate energy services. 

The LIFE-funded ASSERT project seeks to address the energy needs of people with physical disabilities and aims to better understand and then break the vicious cycle in which poor household conditions linked to energy vulnerability worsen existing health issues. To do this, the project will deliver an integrated target-specific training and mentorship programme for local policymakers and intermediaries, equipping them with essential knowledge to implement sustainable energy solutions that will benefit people with disabilities, while integrating energy poverty considerations into broader policy frameworks. 

ASSERT’s systemic literature lays the foundation for a new understanding of energy poverty, which integrates disability as a central determinant of vulnerability, and maps the conceptual definitions, lived experiences, structural relationships, and intervention responses related to disability and energy poverty. Together, these four dimensions illustrate how energy poverty manifests for people with disabilities and how policy and practice might evolve to ensure that the building sector’s transition leaves no one behind.

In addition, insights gathered from over 50 structured interviews with municipalities and local authorities across 5 Member States highlight gaps in local knowledge and capacities, as well as identify emerging training needs for designing and implementing effective energy efficiency and renovation measures that ameliorate the energy hardships faced by people with disabilities. 

Understanding disability in the context of energy poverty

A first step towards ensuring appropriate access to energy services for people with disabilities is definitional clarity. ASSERT highlights a striking absence of shared understanding of what constitutes disability within the energy policy domain. Traditional policy discourse still draws heavily on the medical model. However, there is growing support for the social and biopsychosocial models, which instead positions disability as a result of the barriers created by the built environment, policy frameworks, and social norms. In this view, a person is not disabled by their condition but by the inability of society and of buildings to accommodate their needs.

This shift in perspective has significant implications for the energy sector. It suggests that energy poverty among people with disabilities cannot be reduced to questions of low income or poor energy performance alone. It also relates to the lack of accessible housing, the rigidity of tariff structures that ignore health-related consumption, and the design of programmes that fail to recognise legitimate higher energy requirements. The medical and social models of disability are compared in Table 1, illustrating how the understanding of disability influences the types of interventions proposed. The medical model typically leads to targeted welfare assistance and positions the individual as a passive recipient of assistance, whereas the social model shifts this assumption, prompting structural solutions and prioritising participatory policy processes.
 

_{Table 1. Key differences between the social and medical models of disability. Source: ASSERT D2.1 Report on the state of the art on energy poverty and disability and relevant indicators.}

The lived realities of energy deprivation

ASSERT’s second analytical dimension focuses on the lived experiences of people with disabilities and the specific ways in which energy deprivation affects their health, comfort, and social participation. People with disabilities often face higher energy needs due to prolonged time spent at home, the operation of assistive or medical devices, and the requirement for stable indoor thermal conditions. These circumstances create energy needs that are both higher and less flexible than those of the general population. When combined with limited income, fewer employment opportunities, and inefficient housing, they can result in chronic energy stress.

People with disabilities frequently resort to coping strategies that undermine their well-being. Many restrict heating or cooling to a single room, rely on outdated appliances, reduce other essentials such as comfort, food and mobility to pay energy bills, or reduce the use of medical devices to save electricity. Such measures may offer short-term relief but often worsen existing health conditions. For example, poorly insulated dwellings aggravate respiratory or circulatory problems, while damp and cold environments contribute to mental stress. 

Income constraints, inadequate housing, and health dependence often intersect to create a heightened risk of experiencing energy poverty. As such, this multidimensional exposure also affects social inclusion. Inaccessible homes and unaffordable transport can limit participation in community life, reinforcing the sense of exclusion that many disabled persons already face. Even social housing, which should provide a safety net for these citizens, often fails to address these realities. Tenants rarely have the autonomy to retrofit their homes, and landlords have little incentive to invest in accessibility improvements. The cumulative effect is a form of energy deprivation that is as social as it is technical.

Structural relationships and systemic gaps

Disability and energy poverty are linked by a set of six structural mechanisms that go well beyond individual circumstances. First, there is the dependence on uninterrupted electricity supply for health-related equipment such as ventilators, oxygen concentrators, and powered wheelchairs, which makes disconnections or price volatility particularly dangerous. Second, systemic economic disadvantages, including lower employment rates and persistent discrimination, limit disposable income and therefore the ability to invest in energy efficiency. Third, the quality and accessibility of the housing stock remain critical barriers, given that many people with disabilities live in older or poorly maintained buildings where renovation is neither affordable nor permitted. Fourth, spatial inequalities compound the problem, as rural and peri-urban areas tend to have higher disability rates and poorer access to modern energy services. Fifth, transport poverty intersects with energy vulnerability by restricting access to work, healthcare, and community support. Finally, fragmented governance prevents energy, health, and social policies from aligning their objectives. This limited cross-sector collaboration between the energy, social inclusion, and health domains results in mismatched eligibility criteria for financial aid, redundant administrative procedures, which slow or prevent access to support, and weak targeting of those most in need of assistance. For instance, renovation schemes frequently exclude households unable to co-finance measures, while social tariffs are often defined purely by income thresholds, disregarding the additional energy needs associated with medical equipment or mobility aids.

ASSERT calls for a reorientation of policy frameworks towards the principle of energy capability, emphasising not just affordability but the capacity of individuals to access and benefit from energy in ways that support their well-being.

Interventions and policy responses

Despite growing awareness of energy poverty, very few existing interventions are explicitly designed around disability. ASSERT has identified a wide range of measures that, while beneficial to vulnerable households in general, require adaptation to meet disability-specific needs. Housing renovation remains the most impactful approach, improving thermal comfort and reducing bills. Involving beneficiaries in decision-making and ensuring flexibility in programme design are critical for overcoming remaining barriers.

Financial assistance remains another central instrument. Across Europe, social tariffs and energy subsidies are widely used, but they often fail to recognise year-round medical energy consumption or the need for rapid emergency support. Several promising examples exist, such as the United Kingdom’s emergency boiler replacement scheme or the Belgian social tariff mechanism. However, more dynamic models such as percentage-of-income payment plans or direct credits to utility bills appear better suited to addressing the chronic nature of disability-related energy needs.

Awareness-raising and training are equally important. Many energy advisers, social workers and municipal staff lack the knowledge to identify and support households with complex health-energy dependencies. ASSERT directly responds to this gap by developing an integrated training and mentorship programme for local policymakers and intermediaries, focusing on how to embed energy poverty considerations into broader policy frameworks. This approach recognises that the most effective interventions are often local and relational, built on trust between citizens and frontline professionals.

Interventions across the domains of housing, finance, health, and education can therefore converge to form a supportive ecosystem for people with disabilities that moves beyond short-term relief to long-term structural change. Additionally, by moving from reactive assistance to proactive design, people with disabilities can engage as active participants rather than passive beneficiaries of the energy transition.

Insights from local authorities: knowledge gaps and capacity needs

ASSERT has investigated how energy-related challenges faced by people with disabilities are perceived and addressed at the local level through structured interviews with municipalities and local authorities in Cyprus, France, Greece, Italy and Spain. The interviews reveal a clear consensus that local actors are aware of the growing problem of energy poverty, but few possess the resources or institutional guidance to address it effectively for people with disabilities.

Across all these countries, respondents reported a limited understanding of the intersection between disability and energy poverty. Municipal energy departments tend to operate separately from social services, and data sharing between agencies is minimal. As a result, most local authorities cannot accurately identify or map households affected by both disability and energy deprivation. 

In southern and island contexts such as Cyprus and Greece, climatic conditions intensify the problem. Interviewees reported that prolonged heatwaves increase the energy costs for cooling, especially among households with limited mobility or chronic illness. Yet existing social programmes provide only winter heating subsidies, leaving summer months uncovered. In France and Italy, respondents pointed to administrative complexity and low awareness as major barriers. Application procedures for energy assistance are often digital and exclude older or disabled citizens unfamiliar with online systems.

While many municipalities have climate or renovation strategies, few include explicit references to disability. Therefore, significant capacity gaps also exist as only a minority of energy advisers have received training on how to adapt home visits or audits to the needs of occupants with disabilities. This lack of training results in uneven service delivery and missed opportunities for targeted interventions.  Table 2 summarises the most common knowledge gaps identified by municipalities, ranging from insufficient data on vulnerable groups to the absence of practical guidance for inclusive retrofits.

_{Table 2. Summary of the most common gaps regarding the intersection between energy poverty and disability. Source: ASSERT D4.1 Report on knowledge gap for policy actors and decision makers.}

Collectively, the interviews reveal that while policy awareness is growing, operational capacity remains limited. Local actors are often willing to provide support for people with disabilities, but are under-equipped. To adequately aid this group of citizens, municipalities require clear guidance, funding continuity, and stronger collaboration with national authorities and across housing, social, and health departments, which can enable more holistic energy solutions for this vulnerable group. ASSERT’s training modules, developed precisely to meet these needs, will therefore focus on helping municipalities to identify affected households, align energy and social data, and implement inclusive renovation projects at scale.

Conclusion: towards inclusive and equitable energy transitions

People with disabilities frequently experience overlapping forms of vulnerability, linked to constrained income, inaccessible or inefficient housing, and dependence on energy-intensive medical or assistive equipment. This indicates that energy poverty and disability are not parallel issues, but rather interconnected realities for many European citizens. Despite this, disability-specific requirements remain largely overlooked in mainstream energy and renovation policies, underscoring the need for more inclusive approaches within the energy transition. The limitations of existing policy approaches to address energy hardships for people with disabilities highlight how physical, social and institutional barriers shape access, or the lack thereof, to essential services. 

To ensure that the energy transition in the building sector is socially just and leaves no one behind, four priorities emerge. First, policies must explicitly integrate disability within the definition of energy vulnerability, embedding accessibility and health criteria in building standards and renovation strategies. Second, cross-sector coordination must become the norm, linking energy agencies with health and social departments through shared data and co-designed programmes. Third, capacity-building efforts like ASSERT’s training and mentorship framework should be mainstreamed, empowering local authorities to act as the connective tissue between national targets and household realities. Finally, participatory governance should be encouraged so that people with disabilities are seen not as passive beneficiaries of assistance but as active stakeholders whose lived experience can guide more responsive policy design. 

Redesigning policies and support mechanisms to ensure that people with disabilities are fully acknowledged within relevant energy poverty measures, while also aligning aid schemes with the diverse, fluctuating, as well as nuanced needs and lived experience of persons with disabilities, will make measures more accessible to this vulnerable group and ultimately more impactful.