As renewable energy mandates and rising "Ecological" taxes have driven up electricity prices, an increase in energy poverty has become a problem in countries such as Germany and the United Kingdom.
There are varying definitions for the term, but the newly launched European Union Energy Poverty Observatory defines energy poverty as not being able to afford adequate warmth, cooling, lighting, or the energy to power appliances that guarantee a decent standard of living and health.
One shorthand rule is that a household is energy poor if it must spend more than 10 percent of its income on power.
About 11 cents, or well over half the increase, comes from a renewable energy surcharge and an ecological tax.
Households now pay nearly 22 cents per kWh, with energy and climate change policies accounting for about 10 percent of that amount.
A 2017 study by Christian-Albrechts University energy economist Dragana Nikodinoska found that the proportion of households in Germany spending more than 10 percent of their incomes on energy tripled from 7.5 percent in 1998 to 22 percent in 2013.
According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the average real price of residential electricity in the United States fell by nearly half, from 22 cents in 1960 to 12 cents in 2005.
Still, the EIA's residential energy consumption survey found in 2015 that "About one in five households reported reducing or forgoing basic necessities like food and medicine to pay an energy bill." A 2014 white paper released by the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources calculated that for every 10 percent increase in home energy costs, 840,000 Americans would be pushed below the poverty line.
Without the recent proliferation of state and federal renewable power mandates, it is likely that the price of electricity would have continued its decline and fewer American households would now be unduly burdened by their energy bills.
http://reason.com/archives/2018/05/28/renewable-energy-mandates-are
There are varying definitions for the term, but the newly launched European Union Energy Poverty Observatory defines energy poverty as not being able to afford adequate warmth, cooling, lighting, or the energy to power appliances that guarantee a decent standard of living and health.
One shorthand rule is that a household is energy poor if it must spend more than 10 percent of its income on power.
About 11 cents, or well over half the increase, comes from a renewable energy surcharge and an ecological tax.
Households now pay nearly 22 cents per kWh, with energy and climate change policies accounting for about 10 percent of that amount.
A 2017 study by Christian-Albrechts University energy economist Dragana Nikodinoska found that the proportion of households in Germany spending more than 10 percent of their incomes on energy tripled from 7.5 percent in 1998 to 22 percent in 2013.
According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the average real price of residential electricity in the United States fell by nearly half, from 22 cents in 1960 to 12 cents in 2005.
Still, the EIA's residential energy consumption survey found in 2015 that "About one in five households reported reducing or forgoing basic necessities like food and medicine to pay an energy bill." A 2014 white paper released by the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources calculated that for every 10 percent increase in home energy costs, 840,000 Americans would be pushed below the poverty line.
Without the recent proliferation of state and federal renewable power mandates, it is likely that the price of electricity would have continued its decline and fewer American households would now be unduly burdened by their energy bills.
http://reason.com/archives/2018/05/28/renewable-energy-mandates-are
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