EP-MED Coordinated Action Against Energy Poverty

Energy poverty remains a significant challenge across Mediterranean countries, where millions of households struggle to maintain adequate comfort conditions in their homes due to rising energy costs, low incomes, and the poor energy performance of building stocks. Efforts to tackle the issue are often hindered by fragmented responsibilities across the energy, housing, health, and social services sectors, as well as by the lack of coordinated monitoring systems, limited availability of territorial data, and the absence of permanent cooperation structures among key stakeholders.

These challenges are particularly pronounced in Mediterranean contexts, which are characterized by specific vulnerabilities such as summer energy poverty, ageing building stock, the presence of socially vulnerable groups, and the unique conditions of island territories.

The specific objectives of the project are to: strengthen the governance and coordination of policies to tackle energy poverty through the establishment or consolidation of National Observatories and Regional Hubs in the four Mediterranean countries involved; improve knowledge and monitoring of energy poverty by developing data collection and analysis systems and investigating vulnerabilities specific to Mediterranean contexts, including summer energy poverty, the specific challenges faced by islands, and the conditions of the most vulnerable groups; strengthen the capacities of public authorities and stakeholders through training, capacity-building and knowledge exchange across different levels of governance and among the energy, housing, health and social services sectors; and facilitate the translation of knowledge and strategies into concrete policies and actions by supporting the development of operational plans and policy recommendations, while promoting Mediterranean cooperation, the exchange of good practices and the replication of solutions developed at local, national and European levels.

Sinloc’s role and added value

Within the project, Sinloc contributes primarily to governance, stakeholder engagement, networking, sustainability and replication, with particular attention to connecting territorial structures with national and European networks and initiatives. In particular, Sinloc coordinates the External Advisory Board and leads activities aimed at exchanging experiences and building synergies with other European projects, observatories and hubs addressing energy poverty. In the Italian pilot, Sinloc also contributes to identifying and engaging relevant stakeholders and local facilitators and to promoting the uptake of the tools developed by the project.

The added value of Sinloc’s participation lies in its ability to connect the social and energy dimensions of energy poverty with established expertise in territorial governance, financial and economic sustainability, and the replication of initiatives. Its contribution therefore focuses less on the scientific measurement of energy poverty and more on creating the conditions for the tools and models developed by EP-MED to be integrated into territorial policies, sustained over time and transferred to other contexts.

The main expected outcomes relate to: 1. the establishment (or strengthening, where structures already exist) of four national energy poverty observatories in Portugal, Italy, Spain and Cyprus, tasked with coordinating institutional stakeholders, monitoring the phenomenon and supporting the development of national policies and strategies. In Italy, the aim is to build on the work carried out by OIPE, an informal group comprising experts and academics from various universities, by coordinating its activities with the national energy poverty observatory established by MASE in 2022. 2. The launch of four pilot regional hubs in the areas of South Lisbon, Padua, Zaragoza and Nicosia, designed to facilitate coordination between local authorities, the energy sector, the housing sector, health and social services, thereby translating national strategies into concrete local actions. 3. The establishment of a transnational Mediterranean network linking observatories, hubs and stakeholders across the four countries, promoting the exchange of knowledge, skills development, shared monitoring of energy poverty and the replication of best practices at European level.