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Alleviating household energy poverty and vulnerability in Europe

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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 include a detailed analysis of the starting point and a set of well-substantiated assumptions, and establish clear causality links between the results and the expected impacts.
Proposals submitted under this topic should demonstrate how they will contribute to the reduction of energy poverty and energy vulnerability for the targeted vulnerable households and the development of successful approaches for improvements in the energy efficiency and use of renewable energy solutions, which can be replicated in other regions or Member States. Prebound/rebound effects should be taken into account and reported on, where relevant.
Proposals should quantify their results and impacts using the indicators provided for the topic, when they are relevant for the proposed activities. They should also propose indicators which are specific to 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. Impacts under this topic are expected to be demonstrated for energy vulnerable households specifically.
The indicators for this topic include:

• Number of energy vulnerable households with reduced energy costs.
• Number of multi-apartment buildings renovated.
• Number of governance and decision-making structures adapted for multi-apartment buildings.
• Number of coordination structures or support and capacity-building programmes established.
• Quantified multiple benefits, where relevant, for vulnerable households, such as improved physical and mental health, comfort and indoor environment, better indoor air quality, improved social inclusion, reduced public health expenditure.
• Number of energy poor and/or vulnerable consumers benefitting from the measures.
• Number of legislative acts, policies or strategies created/adapted on energy poverty and energy vulnerability.
• Other environmental impacts such as reduction of the production of harmful substances, or reduced CO2 emissions. Proposals should also quantify their impacts related to the following common indicators for the LIFE Clean Energy Transition subprogramme:

• Investments in sustainable energy (energy efficiency and renewables) triggered by the project (cumulative, in million Euro).
• Primary energy savings triggered by the project (in GWh/year)[1].
• Renewable energy generation triggered by the project (in GWh/year).
• Reduction of greenhouse gases emissions (in tCO2-eq/year). Objective:In recent years, European households have continued to spend an increasing share of income on energy, leading to higher rates of energy poverty and negatively affecting living conditions, well-being and health. Most recent estimates suggest that 6.9% of Europeans are unable to keep their homes adequately warm[2]. Following the recent surges in energy prices, the number of vulnerable households[3] overburdened by their energy costs is likely to be on the rise. These higher prices, combined with low incomes and poor energy efficiency of buildings and appliances, are root causes of energy vulnerability. In addition to its causal multidimensionality, the phenomenon 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. While increasing the uptake of building renovation measures can bring significant long-term benefits to vulnerable households, more immediate energy efficiency measures at the household level and increased use of renewable energy are also key tools in addressing energy vulnerability and can lead to lower energy bills and improved living conditions.
The European Green Deal[4] 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 revision of the Energy Efficiency Directive (EED) as proposed[5], Member States shall implement energy efficiency improvement measures as a priority among energy poor and vulnerable households. These households should be prioritised in the implementation of energy savings obligations, with the option of requiring obligated parties to achieve a share of their energy savings obligation among vulnerable customers and to work together with local authorities to do so. In addition, the proposed EED (recast) underlines the need to address the split incentive dilemma and remove barriers to energy efficiency measures in multi-owner properties. Finally, the REPowerEU Plan and the EU Save Energy Communication[6] highlight the role of immediate behaviour changes by households to reduce energy bills.
In this context, efforts should focus on offering support to build the concrete skills and capacity of vulnerable households to afford their energy bills and ensure adequate comfort levels, as well as supporting relevant actors, including public authorities, in designing longer-term strategies and frameworks to mitigate energy poverty at the sub-national levels, including dedicated financing schemes specifically addressing energy performance improvements for energy poor households. As obligated parties under energy efficiency obligation schemes have potentially at their disposal the necessary data and means to identify energy vulnerability among their customers, supporting the obligated parties is needed in order to spread such schemes across the EU.
Scope:Actions should contribute to actively alleviating energy poverty and energy vulnerability and build on the tools, indicators and resources of existing initiatives, such as the Energy Poverty Advisory Hub[7] or the energy poverty pillar of Covenant of Mayors[8].
The proposed action should cover one or more of the following aspects:

• Support the renovation of private multi-apartment buildings with vulnerable residents, with a special focus on reinforcing and adapting the governance and decision-making structures of building management and homeowners associations, tackling related regulatory framework barriers (e.g. property and/or rental laws), split incentives (where relevant), and setting up and coordinating relevant support services. The renovation actions supported should take into account the ability of residents to remain in their homes to avoid gentrification.[9]
• Design and pilot sustainable, large-scale programmes to improve the skills and capacity of energy vulnerable households with a view to improving household energy efficiency and/or increasing the uptake of renewable energy solutions, thereby lowering household energy bills and improving comfort, and empowering vulnerable and energy poor consumers to take actively part in the energy market. These programmes should be tailored for vulnerable households and may include the provision of feedback[10], energy efficiency measures (e.g. draught proofing, simple insulation measures, or optimisation of existing building technology systems), financial support schemes, or collective solutions (e.g. group purchases, collective self-consumption/energy sharing schemes, peer to peer trading). These actions should be embedded in, and add value to, structural frameworks and activities involving public authorities, societal intermediaries or other relevant actors. A key element of the proposed activities should be the development of a strategy ensuring that the programmes will be sustained after the end of the project, linking to available sources of funding.
• Facilitate the delivery of capacity-building for regional and/or local authorities and societal intermediaries and support these actors in setting up cross-sectoral coordination structures to address energy poverty and vulnerability. This capacity-building should ultimately lead to the relevant actors co-designing and rolling out integrated interventions and support schemes for the benefit of vulnerable households. The actors involved are expected to represent all relevant sectors (e.g. energy, social, health, and housing) to ensure a holistic participatory approach to the alleviation of energy vulnerability in the long term and to improve social cohesion.
• Support obligated parties in setting up and testing schemes for energy efficiency improvement measures for the benefit of vulnerable households under the energy efficiency obligation schemes of the proposed EED (recast), including, where applicable, working together with local authorities or municipalities, and/or relevant networks such as the Covenant of Mayors. It is expected that obligated parties, in particular, are either directly involved or their support is clearly demonstrated in the proposal. The proposed actions should take into account multiple benefits from the Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy measures for the different vulnerable 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.
The proposed actions should involve local authorities and intermediaries such as consumer or social organisations energy companies, healthcare providers, homeowners or tenants associations, renewable energy communities or citizen energy communities, as relevant.
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 in the range of EUR 1.5 to 2 million would allow the specific objectives to be addressed appropriately. Nonetheless, this does not preclude submission and selection of proposals requesting other amounts.
[1] According to studies, many low-income households already consume less energy than average households. Therefore, in this topic, energy savings triggered could result from increased energy efficiency to achieve a minimum comfort level.
[2] EU-SILC survey, 2021.
[3] For the purposes of this topic, the term ‘vulnerable households’ is taken to mean households in energy poverty or households, including lower middle-income ones, that are particularly exposed to high energy costs.
[4] COM(2019) 640 final, including the Renovation Wave Strategy and Commission Recommendation (EU) 2020/1563 of 14 October 2020 on energy poverty.
[5] Proposal for a Directive on energy efficiency (recast) (COM(2021) 558 final).
[6] COM(2022) 240 final.
[7] Results of the predecessor of the Energy Poverty Advisory Hub, the European Energy Poverty Observatory, should also be considered, where relevant.
[8] Actions should also take into account potential initiatives or schemes set up under other relevant EU funding such as the Social Climate Fund or the Just Transition Mechanism.
[9] Actions without a clear focus on vulnerable households may be submitted under topic LIFE-2023-CET-BETTERRENO.
[10] Direct or indirect feedback interventions making use of e.g. energy consumption metering tools, applications, portals, or energy bills.

Status
Closed
Deadline
(time not stated)
Opens
Published
Total budget
€6,000,000
Country
European Union (EU-wide)
Programme
Programme for the Environment and Climate Action (LIFE)
Official page
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© European Union, 2026. Source: EU Funding & Tenders Portal. Reused under Commission Decision 2011/833/EU — CC BY 4.0.

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The source last updated this document on Tue, 01 Jul 2025 08:11:07 GMT.

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