The TRANSFAIR research builds upon the hypothesis that a large-scale deployment of low-carbon solutions disregarding pre-existing socio-economic and material inequalities will result in transitions having regressive effects, deepening disparities and reinforcing or creating new vulnerabilities. This notion was explored in Hungary and Spain as designated case study countries in line with previous research that identified Southern, Central and Eastern Europe as ‘peripheral’ EU regions more severely affected by energy poverty.
The Spanish case study found out that nearly one million people in Spain – 100,000 in Catalonia – lost access to their regular supply of domestic energy due to household financial difficulties in 2016. Taking action against this severe form of energy poverty, the Alliance against Energy poverty (Alianza contra la Pobreza Energética, APE) was launched in Barcelona in February 2014 under the premise of fighting for access to basic supplies such as energy and water as a ‘fundamental human right’. TRANSFAIR research has highlighted the ways in which APE gives voice to the energy poor and provides a platform for their political engagement. A milestone of their political action is Law 24/2015 – a unique piece of legislation that bans supply disconnections of vulnerable households in Catalonia and started off as a people’s legislative initiative led by the Alliance. The TRANSFAIR research found that APE’s transformative collective action challenges pre-established ‘truths’ such as the notion of energy poverty being a matter of individual failure rather than the consequence of structural inequalities; or the belief that in EU countries access to energy services is universal. It also offers ‘afectadas’ alternative, radical understanding of their living conditions and, ultimately, transforms their very experience of domestic energy deprivation.
In Hungary, TRANSFAIR has contributed to existing knowledge about energy justice by exploring how pre-payment meters result in a two-tier segmentation of the domestic electricity provision system and in an ‘underclass’ of precarious citizens who can only use the energy they are able to pre-purchase. The deployment of this ‘disciplinary technology’ creates poorly recognized forms of energy poverty that are in open contradiction with from a ‘right to energy’ perspective. This negative outcome goes hand in hand with evidence showing how, in the Hungarian context, pre-payment meters are the only way through which households in severe energy precarity are allowed to leave behind a traumatic past of arrears, accumulated debts and irregular connections. The widespread presence of pre-payment meters in Hungary (installed in around 100,000 households as of early 2020) and in other EU countries (e.g. Belgium, Ireland and Austria) underlines the timeliness and potential impact of this strand of the TRANSFAIR research.
The TRANSFAIR research features in the Energy Policy and Global Transitions journals. It has been disseminated in national and international fora such as the Annual International Conference of the RGS-IBG, the Fifth Energy and Society Conference, the 11th International Forum on Urbanism (IFOU), the 1st Spanish National Forum and the 2nd Energy Poverty Conference of Catalonia.
