Energy poverty means not having adequate, reliable, and affordable energy for basic daily needs like lighting, cooking, heating, and cooling your home. It affects more than a billion people worldwide, ranging from families in sub-Saharan Africa who have no electricity at all to households in wealthy countries who skip meals to pay their heating bills.
The Core Problem: Three Drivers
Energy poverty comes down to a mismatch between what energy costs and what people can afford, shaped by three main factors: low household income, high energy prices, and poor building efficiency. A family earning a modest income might manage their energy bills in a well-insulated home but fall into energy poverty after moving to a drafty rental with single-pane windows. Similarly, a spike in gas prices can push previously stable households into crisis. When two or all three of these factors overlap, the situation becomes severe.
This means energy poverty isn’t just about living off-grid in a developing country. It exists in every nation. In the United States and Europe, millions of people face what researchers call “energy insecurity,” where they can’t reliably afford the energy needed to keep their homes at safe temperatures. They make trade-offs: turning off the heat, skipping medication, or cutting back on food to cover utility bills.
What It Looks Like Around the World
At the most extreme end, 730 million people worldwide still had no access to electricity in 2024, a number that has barely changed since 2020. Sub-Saharan Africa accounts for eight out of ten of those people. Progress on electrification has essentially stalled.
Cooking is an even larger crisis. Around 2.1 billion people, roughly a quarter of the global population, still cook over open fires or with inefficient stoves burning wood, animal dung, crop waste, coal, or kerosene. The smoke from these fuels fills homes with toxic air. The World Health Organization estimates household air pollution from cooking causes 2.9 million premature deaths every year, including over 309,000 children under age five.
In wealthier countries, the picture is different but still serious. Energy poverty shows up as households keeping indoor temperatures dangerously low in winter because they can’t afford to run the heating, or sweltering through summer heat waves without air conditioning. A New Zealand study found that 43% of respondents identified cost as a barrier to cooling their homes, and households facing that cost barrier were significantly more likely to report health problems from indoor overheating. Renters and Indigenous communities were disproportionately affected.
How Energy Poverty Affects Health
Living in a home you can’t afford to heat or cool does real, measurable damage to your body and mind. The WHO recommends indoor temperatures stay above 18°C (about 64°F). When homes drop below that threshold for extended periods, the cardiovascular system bears the strain. A longitudinal study published in The Lancet Regional Health found that people who couldn’t afford to warm their homes had 71% higher odds of developing hypertension compared to those with adequate heating.
The mental health toll is just as clear. That same study found a 49% increase in the odds of depression or anxiety among people in energy poverty, along with a significant decline in overall mental health scores. Research using nationally representative U.S. data paints a similar picture: adults experiencing any form of energy insecurity had roughly 2.3 times the odds of reporting symptoms of both anxiety and depression. People who gave up other necessities to pay energy bills had about 1.8 times the odds of anxiety and depression symptoms compared to those who didn’t face that trade-off.
The mental health connection makes intuitive sense. Energy insecurity creates chronic stress through persistent financial strain, physical discomfort from unsafe temperatures, and the impossible choices between heating your home and buying groceries or medication. These stressors compound over time rather than resolving.
Climate Change Is Making It Worse
Energy poverty was historically framed as a winter problem: cold homes, unaffordable heating. Climate change is adding a summer dimension. As heat waves grow more frequent and intense, the inability to cool a home becomes a health emergency. This is sometimes called “cooling poverty.”
The challenge creates a difficult cycle. Air conditioning is the most common response to dangerous heat, but it’s energy-intensive and expensive, which deepens the financial burden on households already struggling with energy costs. And in temperate countries like New Zealand, the UK, and parts of the northern United States, buildings and residents simply aren’t prepared for sustained high temperatures. Infrastructure designed for cold winters often traps heat in summer, turning homes into ovens.
What Helps: Policy Approaches That Work
The most effective strategies attack the problem at its roots rather than just subsidizing bills. Across Europe, governments fund energy efficiency retrofits for low-income households, covering insulation, modern windows, and efficient heating systems. These programs reduce energy demand permanently, lowering bills without requiring ongoing payments. The key challenge is getting households to complete the process. Research from Ireland’s retrofit program found that clear communication about benefits in the early planning stages and flexible scheduling (avoiding disruptive winter construction) helped reduce the number of families who abandoned the process partway through.
Other common interventions include social tariffs that cap energy prices for vulnerable households, direct bill assistance programs, and building efficiency standards for new construction and rentals. In developing countries, the focus shifts to expanding grid access and distributing clean cookstoves that dramatically reduce indoor air pollution. No single policy solves energy poverty on its own, because the three drivers (income, prices, and building quality) require different tools and operate differently in every community.