Back in 2018, Roman Tresens Gallard received the most dreaded surprise, the kind that happens only when you open up your energy bills. The monthly rate in his new apartment, the letter revealed, was now rising to over €100 a month.
“It was scandalous,” says Gallard, scarcely masking his fury over the phone.
Living alone in a social housing apartment in Barcelona, Gallard, now 74, was in an extremely precarious position. He had no family to support him. His income was a minimal state pension. The bills — which, according to Gallard, were higher than those of families of three or four people that he knew — could have been catastrophic.
In a wave of panic, unable to pay, Gallard went to the city’s social services for help. It was there that he was told about a new scheme in the city of 5.7 million people that was intended to support citizens in exactly his position: Energy Advising Points.
Just a seven-minute walk from his home, Gallard learned, was one of the 13 Puntos de Asesoramiento Energético that have been set up across the city.
“They were very kind people,” says Gallard. “The service they offer is like real gold.”
Staffed by experienced “energy advisors,” Barcelona’s Energy Advising Points have several interconnected goals: to detect energy poverty; to improve the energy efficiency of homes; to guarantee citizens access to heating, lighting and hot water; to improve the employability of those out of work and to give people greater autonomy.
Citizens can walk in for general advice about reducing their energy bills, they can make an appointment with an advisor for personalized help on topics such as changing tariffs and providers, or they can even request a home visit by municipal inspectors.
In Gallard’s case, very simple changes to his daily habits made a massive difference. He was advised to turn off or unplug all of his electrical appliances when not using them and to only turn on the hot water when he was going to take a shower.
Those behavioral shifts have led to a 75 to 80 percent reduction in his bills.
“I was making such a big waste before,” says Gallard. “I had no idea. There were many things that I didn’t know.”
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Like Gallard, many of Barcelona’s residents — and indeed those across Spain — have faced energy price rises in recent years. Many also live in energy inefficient homes built before the 1980s, when construction regulations had minimal requirements for insulation. The 2008 economic crisis that swept across Europe made the situation of energy poverty even worse. In recent years, Russia’s use of gas prices as a war tool have also exposed EU households to extreme price hikes. “Many people have been unable to pay their bills and the context is worsening,” says Óscar Marin, director of the building and general services department at Barcelona City Council.
According to a 2016 survey by local authorities, 9.1 percent of households across the Catalonia region, home to Barcelona, said they could not afford to keep their homes at an adequate temperature during the winter, 7.4 percent struggled to pay their bills on time, and 5.9 percent reported having mold on their walls, floor, ceiling or foundations.
“This demonstrated that there was a massive problem,” says Marin.
So in 2017, following a small-scale pilot, Barcelona launched the new program of Energy Advising Points, in order to help residents exercise their “energy rights.”
The service is aimed at the entire population of Barcelona, since the concept is that everyone has the right to affordable energy, but a particular focus is given to those who are vulnerable. This includes the elderly, disabled and unemployed, and those experiencing energy poverty, which, according to the European Commission, is when a household “must reduce its energy consumption to a degree that negatively impacts the inhabitants’ health and wellbeing.”
Each agent spends around 20 minutes asking questions in order to discern whether the citizen is in energy poverty. When a potential case of energy poverty is detected, it is referred to an expert who spends one hour following specific administrative procedures. Beyond advice, the agent can help households access financial support for energy bills, allowing discounts of either 25 percent or 40 percent depending on the situation. In certain urgent cases, such as unexpectedly high energy bills, the person can be referred to on-the-ground teams who carry out work to improve energy efficiency such as insulating windows and doors.
The service supported more than 220,000 people between 2017 and 2023, according to the latest data available, preventing 168,762 households from having their power or water supplies cut off and providing an estimated total savings of €700,000 linked to energy advice.
About 40 percent of the users could not afford to keep their homes at a suitable temperature, 23 percent were behind in paying their bills, 11 percent had leaks or problems with dampness at home, 13 percent had respiratory illnesses and seven percent were single parents.
As a broader part of the effort, the service also hires unemployed people in situations of energy poverty, providing two months of training and 10 months of employment as energy point agents. Of the 130 people employed, 80 percent have successfully returned to the job market after participating in the program.
But beyond the clear benefits to vulnerable people, Barcelona authorities say there’s also a strong economic argument for the intervention. While City Hall previously spent €1 million a year covering the cost of energy bills of vulnerable families, thanks to the advice and installations, now it pays just €50,000.
The success in Barcelona could prove important across Europe as energy poverty is becoming a more critical issue. According to EU data, 10.6 percent of the population, about 50 million people, were not able to keep their homes adequately warm in 2023, up from 6.9 percent in 2021. In response, the European Commission announced an Affordable Energy Action Plan in February, aimed at keeping costs down.
“Tackling energy poverty and ensuring that vulnerable consumers have access to essential energy is one of our priorities,” an EU official said in an emailed statement.
“Targeted policies and interventions aiming to expand energy assistance programs and promote energy-efficient housing can be pivotal in mitigating energy poverty and collectively alleviating the burden of excess mortality linked to it.”
Efraim Centeno Hernáez, chair of energy and poverty at the University of Pontificia Comillas in Madrid, says that interventions like that in Barcelona are simple yet could make a significant difference.
“Some people have air leaking from their windows,” he says. “It’s easy to put rubber there, but people don’t know about it. High-efficiency light bulbs can also have a high impact on the bills. But people don’t know about it.”
Hernáez also points to the wider need for structural and policy-based change, including building more efficient new homes, retrofitting old homes, providing subsidies for heat pumps and other technologies, as well as reducing bureaucracy.
The challenge of serving rural areas in Spain, which have large elderly populations and are being hit by a growing number of heatwaves, remains unsolved, he adds.
“There’s still a lot of work to do,” says Hernáez.
Barcelona officials also admit that reaching the most vulnerable citizens even in cities, some of whom lack access to the internet or simply don’t know about the services, remains an ongoing struggle. To maximize outreach, Energy Advising Point teams are holding awareness campaigns in neighborhoods and are directly in contact with potential referrers such as health centers and firefighters. They are also developing a smartphone app to ease the process.
“It’s good for everyone to have this support,” says Gallard. “I don’t feel alone thanks to them.”
The post In Barcelona, a Little Energy Advice Goes a Long Way appeared first on Reasons to be Cheerful.
