Alleviating household energy poverty in Europe

Expected Impact:

Proposals should present the concrete results which will be delivered by the activities and demonstrate how these results will contribute to the topic-specific impacts. This demonstration should rely on a solid analysis of the current situation, realistic assumptions and baselines, and establish clear causality links between activities, results and impacts.

In terms of qualitative impact, proposals under this topic should demonstrate how they will contribute to the reduction of (summer) energy poverty for the targeted households (Scope B) and the development of successful coordination structures (Scope A), which can be replicated in other regions or Member States. Prebound/rebound effects should be taken into account and factored in the quantification of impacts, where relevant.

In terms of quantitative impact, proposals should quantify their results and impacts using the indicators provided for the topic, when they are relevant for the proposed activities. Proposals are not expected to address all the listed impacts and indicators. The results and impacts should be quantified for the end of the project and for 5 years after the end of the project. The quantitative indicators for this topic include:

• Number of energy poor households with reduced energy costs (Scope A and B)
• Number of energy poor consumers benefitting from the activities (Scope A and B)
• Number of residential multi-apartment buildings renovated (or renovations triggered by project end) (Scope B)
• Number of governance and decision-making structures reinforced/adapted for residential multi-apartment buildings to facilitate energy renovation investments (Scope B)
• Number of tailored financing strategies developed for multi-apartment building renovation with energy poor residents (Scope B)
• Number of agreements concluded between homeowners and tenant associations demonstrating commitment to energy renovation investments (Scope B)
• Number of energy poverty coordination structures established or reinforced (Scope A)
• Number of legislative or implementing acts, policies or strategies created/adapted on energy poverty, including summer energy poverty where relevant (Scope A and B)
• Number of public authorities and stakeholders with increased capacity and skills (mainly Scope A)
• Number of training hours per participant in capacity-building programmes (Scope A)
• Increased energy poor household ability to maintain home below a critical heat threshold (Scope A and B)
• Quantified multiple benefits for energy poor households, such as improved physical and mental health, comfort and indoor environment, better indoor air quality, improved social inclusion, reduced public health expenditure (Scope A and B).

Proposals should also provide indicators which are specific to their proposed activities.

Proposals should also quantify their impacts related to the following common indicators for the LIFE Clean Energy Transition sub-programme:

• Primary energy savings triggered by the project in GWh/year^[1]
• Final energy savings triggered by the project in GWh/year
• Renewable energy generation triggered by the project (in GWh/year)
• Reduction of greenhouse gas emissions (in tCO2-eq/year)
• Investments in sustainable energy (energy efficiency and renewable energy) triggered by the project (cumulative, in million Euro).

Funding rate

Other Action Grants (OAGs) — 95% 

Objective:

European households continue to spend a high share of their income on energy, leading to higher rates of energy poverty^[2] and negatively affecting living conditions, well-being and health. Most recent estimates suggest that 9.2% of Europeans are unable to keep their homes adequately warm^[3]. Higher energy prices, combined with low incomes and poor energy efficiency of buildings and appliances, are root causes of energy poverty. Moreover, the increased occurrence of extreme summer heatwaves in recent years is further exacerbating the challenges faced by energy poor households and increasing household cooling needs, with data indicating that over 20% of European households were unable to keep their dwelling comfortably cool during the summer^[4] (‘summer energy poverty’^[5]). In addition to its causal multidimensionality, energy poverty cuts across different policy sectors beyond energy, such as health, housing and social policy, requiring coordinated, holistic efforts at all governance levels, and involving different sectoral actors.

The European Green Deal^[6] sets out to ensure an energy transition that is socially just and inclusive. In accordance with the Fit for 55 package, and in particular the recast Energy Efficiency Directive (EED)^[7], Member States shall take appropriate measures to empower and protect energy poor people and implement energy efficiency improvement measures as a priority among people affected by energy poverty, vulnerable customers, people in low-income households and, where applicable, people living in social housing. In addition, the revised EPBD^[8] requires Member States to target the least efficient building stock first in line with the “worst first principle” and the EED (recast) underlines the need to address the split incentive dilemma and remove barriers to energy efficiency measures in multi-owner properties. The social dimension of the Energy Union is further strengthened in the Citizens Energy Package^[9] through more ambitious commitments to reduce energy poverty and build on the implementation of the Fit for 55 package. To ensure more coordinated action on energy poverty, the EC has also published guidance on the implementation of EED requirements^[10], and an EC Recommendation on Energy Poverty and accompanying Staff Working Document further set out a series of measures and policies that can be adopted^[11].

In this context, increasing the uptake of building renovation measures, including cooling solutions, can bring significant long-term benefits to energy poor households, and lead to lower energy bills, improved living conditions and health, as well as improving social inclusion. Efforts should focus on offering support to overcome barriers to the uptake of renovation measures in residential multi-apartment buildings requiring coordinated action amongst homeowners and tenants, as well as supporting relevant actors, including diverse public authorities, in designing longer-term strategies and coordination frameworks to mitigate energy poverty at different governance levels.

The EU is facing important increases in energy prices, driven by market volatility and exacerbated by its dependence on imported fossil fuels. A key priority for the EU is to strengthen the resilience of its energy system vis-a-vis geopolitical crises impacting the global energy market. Therefore, applicants under this topic are invited, where possible, to develop and implement long-term structural sustainable and energy efficiency measures to enhance EU energy system resilience against future crises, in coherence with short-term energy relief measures needed to respond to the current shock on the global energy markets.

Scope:

Actions should contribute to actively alleviating energy poverty and build on the tools, indicators and resources of existing initiatives, such as the Energy Poverty Advisory Hub^[12] and the energy poverty pillar of the Covenant of Mayors^[13].

Proposals are encouraged for actions with a specific focus on summer energy poverty alleviation and/or actions focusing on geographic areas with less developed energy poverty alleviation measures and frameworks.

Proposals should cover only one of the two scopes below, either Scope A or Scope B of the topic. The scope addressed should be specified in the proposal introduction.

Scope A: Policy and coordination support to public authorities and stakeholders

Actions should support national, regional and/or local authorities and relevant stakeholders in setting up formalised, long-term, cross-sectoral coordination structures to tackle energy poverty. The coordination structures should foster cross-departmental and cross-sectoral collaboration across national, regional, and/or local government structures, and involve relevant public bodies and private/public stakeholders, such as civil society organisations, healthcare providers, economic operators or academia. The proposal should outline the organisational structure (including the engagement strategy for participating actors), main methods of operation and key objectives (e.g. development of definitions, criteria, or indicators, data collection, advice on support methods or schemes to reduce energy poverty, etc). The proposal should also identify the specific local/regional/national challenges or gaps the coordination structure(s) aim to address. Where similar coordination structures (e.g. energy poverty observatories) already exist or are already in development^[14], the proposal must clearly demonstrate the need for, and added value of, any new coordination structures and must also demonstrate the support of, or existing cooperation with, the existing structure(s).

To facilitate the set-up of such structures and build the necessary organisational expertise, proposals should also include the delivery of tailored capacity-building activities for the specific national, regional and/or local authorities and stakeholder organisations involved in the coordination structures. The capacity-building should consist of structured, in-depth training tailored to the specific needs and languages of the coordination structure members, ensuring improved skills and capacity in the long term.

The composition of the coordination structures is expected to represent all relevant sectors, including energy, social, health and housing sectors, to ensure a holistic participatory approach to the alleviation of energy poverty in the long term.

The main public authorities involved in the coordination structure(s) must be identified in the proposal. The public authorities and stakeholders, such as consumer or social organisations, the housing sector, energy companies, or healthcare providers, should be either directly involved in the consortium or their concrete commitment and involvement in the coordination structures should be demonstrated in the proposal through, for example, tailored letters of support at executive decision-making level.

The proposal should make clear whether the proposed coordination structures address the national, local and/or regional level. If several governance levels are addressed, the need for this should be justified in the proposal.

The proposal should set out a convincing plan to ensure long-term sustainability of the coordination structures beyond project duration, including the expected hosting entities.

Scope B: Facilitating residential multi-apartment building renovation

Actions under Scope B should support the energy renovation of residential multi-apartment buildings in spatially related vulnerable districts/neighbourhoods with predominantly energy poor inhabitants, with a view to reducing and optimising their heating and cooling needs and improving the health and comfort of energy poor residents.

In order to facilitate the uptake of renovation measures, proposed actions are expected to concretely support the renovation of multi-apartment buildings by implementing strategies and approaches, which may include reinforcing and/or adapting the governance and decision-making structures of building management and homeowners or tenants associations, tackling related regulatory barriers such as property/rental laws and/or condominium laws, defining appropriate financing strategies for the specific target group, addressing split incentives (where relevant), and setting up and/or coordinating relevant support or advisory services (e.g. resource centres, one-stop shops). Where such support/advisory services are already in place, proposals should demonstrate how they build on them, rather than establish new services.

The proposed actions are encouraged to consider both winter and summer energy poverty and integrate building-level measures with community or neighbourhood-level approaches, where appropriate. These approaches may include, for example, integration of sustainable active cooling solutions with passive cooling measures (e.g. nature-based solutions, urban greening), or social leasing schemes.

Regardless of the specific measures proposed, the proposal should demonstrate their affordability for energy poor residents in terms of both upfront and longer-term costs.

The renovation actions supported should also ensure the ability of residents to remain in their homes after works, thereby avoiding so-called renovictions.

It is expected that the homeowners or tenant associations and housing organisations, in particular, in addition to other relevant actors (e.g. financial institutions), are either directly involved in the consortium or their concrete commitment and involvement in the project is clearly demonstrated in the proposal through, for example, tailored letters of support.

For both Scope A and Scope B

Proposals should take into account multiple benefits from energy efficiency and renewable energy for different energy poor target groups, such as improved health, comfort, air quality, better social inclusion etc. Specific attention could be paid to particular groups which are more at risk of being affected by energy poverty or more susceptible to the adverse impacts of energy poverty, taking into account gender, where relevant. Proposals are not expected to develop new IT tools, databases or platforms, unless their added value compared to existing ones is justified, and their potential scale-up beyond the project convincingly addressed.

Proposals must be submitted by at least 3 applicants (beneficiaries; not affiliated entities) from 3 different eligible countries.

The Commission considers that proposals requesting a contribution from the EU of up to EUR 1.75 million would allow the specific objectives to be addressed appropriately. Nonetheless, this does not preclude submission and selection of proposals requesting other amounts.

For proposals addressing building renovation actions without a clear focus on energy poor households, please consider applying under the topic LIFE-2026-CET-BETTERRENO.

For proposals addressing One-Stop-Shops for renovation, please consider applying under the topic LIFE-2026-CET-OSS.

For proposals addressing support services for energy communities, please consider applying under the topic LIFE-2026-CET-ENERCOM.

[1] According to studies, many energy poor households already consume less energy than average households. Therefore, in this topic, energy savings triggered can be calculated based on the theoretical energy consumption that would allow to achieve the standard comfort level prior to implementation of energy efficiency measures.

[2] In line with Article 2(52) of the EED (recast), ‘energy poverty’ means a household’s lack of access to essential energy services, where such services provide basic levels and decent standards of living and health, including adequate heating, hot water, cooling, lighting, and energy to power appliances, in the relevant national context, existing national social policy and other relevant national policies, caused by a combination of factors, including at least non-affordability, insufficient disposable income, high energy expenditure and poor energy efficiency of homes.

[3] Eurostat, June 2025.

[4] EU-SILC, 2023.

[5] For the purposes of this topic, summer energy poverty refers to the inability of households to afford or access adequate cooling to maintain thermal comfort during extreme heat.

[6] COM(2019) 640 final, including the Renovation Wave Strategy and Commission Recommendation (EU) 2020/1563 of 14 October 2020 on energy poverty.

[7] Directive (EU) 2023/1791

[8] Directive (EU) 2024/1275

[9] COM/2026/115 final

[10] Commission Recommendation (EU) 2024/2481

[11] Commission Recommendation (EU) 2023/2407 of 20 October 2023 on energy poverty (C/2023/4080) and Commission Staff Working Document (SWD/2023/647 final).

[12] Energy Poverty Advisory Hub

[13] Actions should also take into account the initiatives or support schemes set up under other relevant EU funding such as the Social Climate Fund or the Just Transition Mechanism.

[14] For further information, you may refer to, for example, country fiches published by the Energy Poverty Advisory Hub.