The number of households in the Netherlands that lives with energy poverty rose considerably last year. In 2024, around 510,000 households (6.1 percent of all households) lived with energy poverty, 180,000 more than the year before.
Why this increase? In 2022 and 2023, during the energy crisis, many households received help from the government in paying their energy bills, an energy supplement and a price ceiling. That financial support disappeared after 2023, while energy prices are still higher than before the energy crisis.
Researchers from TNO attract these conclusions in a study published on Thursday, based on CBS figures. TNO and Statistics Netherlands have kept the development in energy poverty since 2019. The result of 2024 is a provisional estimate, because not all figures for that year have arrived.
Poverty criterion
When is there, according to TNO and Statistics Netherlands, energy poverty? If households have a low income in combination with homes with low energy quality. The researchers call an income low if the household earns a maximum of 130 percent from the ‘low-income limit’, or a disposable income of up to 20,875 euros in 2024 for a single-person household. With a low energetic quality, they mean a home that is poorly insulated, for example. Homes with an energy label D or lower fall in that category.
Between 2019 and 2023, the share of energy -poor households decreased steadily, from 8.6 percent to 4 percent respectively. That is because the quality of the houses greatly improves. In 2019, about half of the houses still had a low energy quality, in 2024 it was more or less a third. At the same time, incomes have risen in recent years.
Striking: after the gas market was turned upside down when Russia invaded Ukraine and the Netherlands came into an energy crisis, the energy poverty in the first instance did not become more serious. Although energy prices rose during the energy crisis, the bill that consumers had to pay under the line did not rise on average.
‘Sub -Consumption’
How is that possible? People were shocked by the high prices and therefore used energy more efficiently. And the government jumped in. There was a surcharge of 1,300 euros per year and a price ceiling – a maximum price for the first 1,200 cubic meters of natural gas and the first 2,900 kWh.
According to an earlier estimate of Statistics Netherlands and TNO, the energy poverty in 2023 had risen to 4.8 percent. But now the final figures for 2023 have arrived and that shows that in that year the energy poverty was still four percent.
If the financial support had not been there, the energy poverty would have risen dramatically in 2022 and 2023. Then the percentage of energy -poor households in 2022 would be above 6 percent and in 2023 at almost 9 percent, the researchers calculated.
The positive effect of financial support is also clearly visible in 2024, the year in which that support fell away. Although no longer as extreme as just after the Russian invasion, energy prices were still higher than before the energy crisis. High energy prices and falling support are the recipe for more energy poverty. That is why they are not surprised at the CBS and TNO about the deteriorated situation in 2024, about the considerably grown number of energy -poor households.
The number of households that were forced ‘underconsuming’ – less energy used than is expected on the basis of the type of home during the energy crisis. Within the energy -poor group, the share of households with subconsumption in 2021 is estimated at 24 percent. In 2024 that is 49 percent. A large doubling.
More intensively
On average, households paid around 171 euros per month for their energy in 2024. If you only look at the bills of energy -poor households, you will come to an average of 184 euros. Those amounts have risen faster in recent years than income. This means that the part of the income that households spend on energy increases. In 2024, energy -poor households spent on an average of almost 12 percent of energy. That is an increase of 4.5 percentage points compared to 2023. In other words, not only the number of households in energy poverty increased, the energy poverty itself also became more intense. For comparison: all households viewed together, whether and not energy -poor, in 2024, on average five percent of their income issued energy.
What can the new cabinet do soon to improve the situation, in addition to financial support? Making the houses more sustainable helps, says one of the researchers during a press conference about the figures, but not every household is possible. 896,000 households cannot make it more sustainable because they either have a rental home where they are not allowed or they do not have the financial resources. In addition, the researchers see that sometimes more sustainable, only the energy bill does not lower enough to get out of the energy poverty. According to them, income policy is also necessary.