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SUITE - Scaling up ASSIST

Survey on counselling services for citizens struggling with energy vulnerability

Energy poverty is a widespread problem across Europe, as between 50 and 125 million people in EU are unable to afford proper indoor thermal comfort. Normally, people suffering a situation of energy poverty trust in local social services for handling the situation (subsidiarity principle). Their staff are well prepared to provide general support to users, but they often lack the specific knowledge and skills to address situations of energy poverty.

SUITE aims to develop a scalability plan, based in the ASSIST project results, for a proven social service innovation focused in effectively reducing energy poverty through social operators.

The SUITE plan proposes capacity building and follow-up focused on energy poverty. It seeks to involve vulnerable domestic energy users, energy companies, public administrations, third sector organisations, civil society and technical staff from social services both on technical and financial issues. SUITE proposal is based on weaving alliances: from the coordination side, partner organisations will establish alliances with local governments to design a capacity building programme for the social service team, adaptable to specific local needs. A similar approach will be used for the private sector to centralize all their existing CSR, philanthropic or social investment resources dedicated to energy poverty.

Objectives

The project general objective is to design a strategy to scale up a proven social innovation service aimed at reducing Energy Poverty through social operators at EU level. For doing so, the specific objectives are:

Implementation of 5 pilots to analyse different contexts (Spain, Italy, Poland, Hungary, and Romania).
Establishing and consolidating an effective collaboration between all related stakeholders; public administration, social services, citizens, private sector, and professional organizations.
Foster empowerment and autonomous participation of vulnerable consumers in the energy market, by strengthening their knowledge and ability to exercise their energy rights.