As most European countries have no official definition for the term "energy poverty", this state is often described as the "inability to keep homes adequately warm". The problem becomes a challenge of the European welfare systems and beyond, abounding on the inequalities derived from living conditions and social determinants, with a direct and negative impact on health and wellbeing, mainly in urban contexts.

 

Besides respiratory diseases, heart attacks, stroke and mental disorders (stress, anxiety, depression), hypothermia, injuries, or influenza, living in energy poverty poses a significant risk to the physical and mental health of those living in cold homes.

The complex nature of this phenomenon requires a comprehensive analysis of the problem and a multidimensional approach, which should consider environmental, political, social, regulatory and psychological issues aimed at development of the urban policies and initiatives to address them.

WELLBASED is a Horizon Europe project that aims to design, implement and evaluate a comprehensive urban program to reduce energy poverty and its effects on the citizens' health and wellbeing, built on evidence-based approaches in pilot cities. The cities in EU and Turkey participating in the project are: Valencia (Spain), Heerlen (Netherlands), Lees (UK), Edirne (Turkey), Budapest (Hungary), Jelgava (Latvia) representing different urban realities and a diverse range of welfare and healthcare models.

ASIDEES leads the work package "Pilots preparation & implementation" in which we installed 6 cloud instances of the Smart City Monitor IoT technology platform for each pilot city. Each platform was linked with 3 environmental sensors installed in each of ~125 apartments and houses in every city measuring the living conditions in real time. As results the project allowed automatic real time data collection from about 700 apartments with more than 2000 sensors (humidity, temperature, CO2). 

In addition, to the presentation of the evidence data about each apartment (anonymized), the platform runs instant calculation of the aggregated indicators for the whole urban community such as  

• Temperature in community
• Average time high temperature deficient state for one apartment per day
• Average time low temperature deficient state for one apartment per day
• Average time temperature deficient state for one apartment per dayCO2 value in community
• Average time high CO2 value deficient state for one apartment per day
• Humidity in community
• Average time low humidity deficient state for one apartment per day
• Average time high humidity deficient state for one apartment per day
• Average time humidity deficient state for one apartment per day

The groundbreaking results showcase a fresh paradigm of practical success in implementing unique innovative digital technologies developed in EU. Smart CIty Monitor technology helps municpalities the monitoring of citizens’ living conditions within the urban areas, facilitating informed decision-making and evidence-based policy formulation at the local governance level. Ultimately, this approach aims to alleviate the impact of energy poverty on vulnerable communities as a whole.

In addtion Smart City Monitor technogy platform supports ISO 37120 certification and its ongoing compliance, making it transparent, non-biased and available online.        

 

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REFERENCES:

 

• WELLBASED: IMPROVING HEALTH, WELLBEING AND EQUALITY BY EVIDENCED-BASED URBAN POLICIES FOR TACKLING ENERGY POVERTY.                                         

• POSSIBLE APPROACH TO DEFINE ENERGY POVERTY: INABILITY TO KEEP HOME ADEQUATELY WARM

• FUEL POVERTY AND HUMAN HEALTH: A REVIEW OF RECENT EVIDENCE, ENERGY POLICY, THE ROLE OF TRUST IN MANAGING UNCERTAINTIES IN THE TRANSITION TO A SUSTAINABLE ENERGY ECONOMY, SPECIAL SECTION WITH REGULAR PAPERS, 38, NO. 6 (1 JUNE 2010): 2987–97

• FUEL POVERTY INCREASES RISK OF MOULD CONTAMINATION, REGARDLESS OF ADULT RISK PERCEPTION & VENTILATION IN SOCIAL HOUSING PROPERTIES. ENVIRONMENT INTERNATIONAL VOLUME 79, JUNE 2015