• Arnau Aliana Guardia
  • Alexandre Torne I Diaz De Heredia
Precarious access to electricity is one of the possible manifestations of Energy Poverty and is still a live issue in regions such as the EU. In parallel, emerging decentralised markets are set to have a crucial role in the future of the electricity sector. This opens a window of opportunity to investigate how can these markets be designed to internalise the costs of alleviating precarious access to electricity.

A methodology is proposed to calculate a minimum decent consumption and affordable electricity prices for low-income households, depending on the household's characteristics. Moreover, two methods are presented to internalise the cost of guaranteeing affordable electricity to those more vulnerable. First, an Energy Poverty tariff, set to be paid for those agents in a better position in the market. Second, a Price Intervention scheme, where the price of trades between large producers and low-income households is fixed.

Results from the Case Study analysis show that, although it is noticeably dependent on the characteristics of the market agent sample and architecture, the cost of the needed support can be internalised without an excessive impact on the rest of the agents' welfare. How the distribution of costs of the needed support is done should be tailored to each specific case.
SpecialisationSustainable Energy Planning and Management
LanguageEnglish
Publication date3 Jun 2021
Number of pages101
ID: 413690645