Energy Security Versus Fuel Poverty: Protecting Vulnerable Households During an Energy Crisis

My PhD aims to analyse current experiences of fuel poverty and energy security in the UK, with the ultimate aim of generating local and national policy recommendations to remedy the most severe cases of fuel poverty. In the literature, there is a general consensus that household income, household composition, building efficiency and energy prices are the main contributing factors affecting fuel poverty risk; however, the Low Income Low Energy Efficiency (LILEE) definition of fuel poverty, which is currently adopted in England, contradicts this set of criteria, and places a (potentially) unwarranted level of focus on Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) ratings instead.

The first study of my PhD, entitled An Empirical Critique of the Low Income Low Energy Efficiency (LILEE) Approach to Measuring Fuel Poverty, showed that the current fuel poverty metric in England (LILEE) significantly underestimates the true rate of on-the-ground fuel poverty (see http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4583384 for preprint). These findings are the result of a two-stage analysis of fuel poverty in Nottingham and London: stage 1 involved the estimation of financially vulnerable households omitted from fuel poverty statistics according to the flawed criteria of the LILEE metric; while stage 2 analysed survey data collected in London to show that energy insecurity (which refers to a household's self-reported ability/inability to afford sufficient energy) was around 145% higher than the LILEE fuel poverty rate for London in winter 2022. Given the findings of the first study, the research questions for the remainder of my PhD are as follows:

Research Question I: How feasible is the introduction of a new/amended fuel poverty metric in England?

Research Question II: How do different types of health problems or disabilities affect risk of fuel poverty/energy security?

Research Question III: Can a post-hoc machine learning (ML) method be developed to enhance the interpretability and understanding of heterogenous variables in discrete outcome modelling frameworks?

At this point, most focus will be afforded to the design, feasibility and proposal of a new or amended fuel poverty metric in England (as per RQI). The findings of this study can be used to show the degree of LILEE's underestimation, as well as improving the identification of truly fuel poor (i.e., energy insecure) households. Following the proposal of a new metric, political impact routes will be explored, with a view to shaping the future approach to measuring fuel poverty in England.

We will collaborate with over 40 partners drawn from across FMCG and Food; Creative Industries; Health and Wellbeing; Smart Mobility; Finance; Enabling technologies; and Policy, Law and Society. These will benefit from engagement with our CDT through the following established mechanisms:

- Training multi-disciplinary leaders. Our partners will benefit from being able to recruit highly skilled individuals who are able to work across technologies, methods and sectors and in multi-disciplinary teams. We will deliver at least 65 skilled PhD graduates into the Digital Economy.

- Internships. Each Horizon student undertakes at least one industry internship or exchange at an external partner. These internships have a benefit to the student in developing their appreciation of the relevance of their PhD to the external societal and industrial context, and have a benefit to the external partner through engagement with our students and their multidisciplinary skill sets combined with an ability to help innovate new ideas and approaches with minimal long-term risk. Internships are a compulsory part of our programme, taking place in the summer of the first year. We will deliver at least 65 internships with partners.

- Industry-led challenge projects. Each student participates in an industry-led group project in their second year. Our partners benefit from being able to commission focused research projects to help them answer a challenge that they could not normally fund from their core resources. We will deliver at least 15 such projects (3 a year) throughout the lifetime of the CDT.

- Industry-relevant PhD projects. Each student delivers a PhD thesis project in collaboration with at least one external partner who benefits from being able to engage in longer-term and deeper research that they would not normally be able to undertake, especially for those who do not have their own dedicated R&D labs. We will deliver at least 65 such PhDs over the lifetime of this CDT renewal.

- Public engagement. All students receive training in public engagement and learn to communicate their findings through press releases, media coverage.

This proposal introduces two new impact channels in order to further the impact of our students' work and help widen our network of partners.

- The Horizon Impact Fund. Final year students can apply for support to undertake short impact projects. This benefits industry partners, public and third sector partners, academic partners and the wider public benefit from targeted activities that deepen the impact of individual students' PhD work. This will support activities such as developing plans for spin-outs and commercialization; establishing an IP position; preparing and documenting open-source software or datasets; and developing tourable public experiences.

- ORBIT as an impact partner for RRI. Students will embed findings and methods for Responsible Research Innovation into the national training programme that is delivered by ORBIT, the Observatory for Responsible Research and Innovation in ICT (www.orbit-rri.org). Through our direct partnership with ORBIT all Horizon CDT students will be encouraged to write up their experience of RRI as contributions to ORBIT so as to ensure that their PhD research will not only gain visibility but also inform future RRI training and education. PhD projects that are predominantly in the area of RRI are expected to contribute to new training modules, online tools or other ORBIT services.