Bills: Oipe, 2.2 million families in energy poverty

11.9% of households cannot afford the costs for heating their homes: there are 2.2 million families in energy poverty, 8% of Italian families at the end of 2021. This was found by the Oipe, the Italian Observatory on Energy Poverty, in a research presented on the occasion of the plenary session of the Manifesto "Together to fight energy poverty" which was held in Rome to also present the new data from Ipsos and the projects promoted by Banco dell'energia.

In the first quarter of 2022 - with the increases in natural gas prices transmitted to wholesale electricity prices - the Utilitatis Foundation estimates that 13% of Italian families are affected by the phenomenon, for 3.5 million citizens in conditions of energy poverty.

According to the study, based on recent simulations conducted on a model of the energy demand of Italian families, the Government interventions "have had a limited effect on containing the spending of the most vulnerable families: this limited effect seems to derive from the nature of the aid activated by the 2021, specifically to families in energy poverty".

Processing of the most recent data from the Household Expenditure Survey "indicate a limited overlap between beneficiaries of the bonuses and energy-poor households, confirming the results of previous analyses, and underlining the need to proceed with a review of the bonus instrument".

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