A framework for policy mix analysis: assessing energy poverty policies

ABSTRACT

Under the topics of climate change and sustainable transitions, the importance of policy mix understanding and energy poverty is simultaneously discussed. Both concepts do not have universal definitions, and literature focuses on building the different fragments of each one to design new ways to understand, analyze and develop policies. Energy poverty is complex and has a multitude of drivers, such as income, energy prices, and buildings/energy efficiency are examples of how different policies are required to erase this problem. Understanding how those policies work together and should be evaluated challenges new perspectives between different fields. Framed in this subject matter, and after an overview of its state of the art, a flexible and systemic framework for policy mix analysis is proposed considering five steps: definition of objectives, instrument selection, single instrument analysis, instruments interaction analysis, and evaluation. The major contribution of the proposed framework is a clear yet adaptable criterion for instruments interaction analysis. Energy poverty literature is reviewed in the optic of how policy mix can help develop and analyze policies for its erasing, and specific criteria for its instruments analysis are suggested.

KEYWORDS:

• Policy mix
• policy analysis
• energy poverty
• sustainable transitions

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The authors acknowledge and are thankful for the support provided to CENSE by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) through the strategic project UIDB/04085/2020.