Energy poverty in Poland is becoming increasingly visible as a problem concerning people not being able to meet their basic energy needs at their place of living, at an affordable price.
This phenomenon results in either elevated energy bills, preventing people from meeting other basic needs, or in living in under-heated apartments and houses. It is estimated that each of these problems affects about 17% Poles.
There is another serious effect of this issue – air pollution and smog. Lower-income households use old and ineffective heating systems, as well as cheap fuel of questionable quality. There is plenty being said and done to exchange old heating stoves for more effective ones, but it is often disregarded that their owners will not be able to afford the fuel to fire them.
The solution of this problem is an effective thermal modernisation of buildings, which would allow for decreasing the amount of heating energy used by the household. Often even little capital is enough to make a building more energy efficient and improve its inhabitants’ comfort of living.
