Blog | Megan Scherrer | Nov 2025

Fuel poverty remains one of the most persistent and pressing social challenges across the UK, and progress requires more than targets alone. 26 November is Fuel Poverty Awareness Day, and therefore a good time to acknowledge that there is significant work to be done before we meet any of the UK fuel poverty targets.

Whether it is the English goal; to have as many fuel poor homes as reasonably possible brought to a minimum of EPC C by 2030 (1), or the Scottish goal; to have no more than 5% of homes living with fuel poverty by 2040 (2). These targets help to signal intent to the market, establish accountability for governments, enable investment and keeping momentum going. But targets alone are not enough to eliminate fuel poverty, we need equitable and actionable policy. Work by the Energy Demand Research Centre (EDRC) helps us to understand how equitable policy must consider and include the complex lived realities and intersecting vulnerabilities households face; such as health conditions, disability, and consumption constraints (3). Households experience overlapping and diverse forms of vulnerability, meaning that vulnerability, and the experience of fuel poverty, varies significantly across households.

Intersectional inequalities, those which affect disabled people, ethnic minority households, women, older people and lone parents, impact how home energy injustices are experienced and reproduced (4). These injustices have important implications for energy affordability, health, wellbeing and quality of life.

Effective home energy advice will be key to addressing this. However, the current system is under-funded, patchy, and heavily relies on the third sector (5). A nationally coordinated system of home energy advice is required, available to all and tailored to individual needs (6). Furthermore, considerations must be taken to make sure that equally important retrofitting and heating system upgrades do not drive up energy bills, especially given the UK’s labour market constraints and cost-of-living concerns (7; 8).

As ongoing work at EDRC attempts to co-produce a definition of energy equity, it is clear that the evolving energy system must be designed to reflect the diverse needs of its users. EDRC calls for action in its Energy Equity Campaign; as ensuring equity in the energy transition requires us to do more than create safeguards, energy policy must be flexible to meet the changing needs of households and to be inclusive of the many different ways people experience fuel poverty.

A manifesto for urgent action: protecting people this winter and beyond

As we mark National Fuel Poverty Awareness Day, the manifesto from Energy Action Scotland is a stark reminder of the scale of this challenge and the urgent need for coordinated action. Developed with the input of a range of frontline organisations, this manifesto embodies the lived realities of households right across Scotland and sets out clear, actionable steps for government and policymakers.

The message is clear: everyone deserves the right to live in a warm, safe, energy-efficient home, supported by a fair income and access to affordable energy. Yet this right remains far from realised, as an estimated 820,000 households continue to struggle with fuel poverty this winter (9). The manifesto highlights several key priorities:

• A social tariff for energy to protect low-income, disabled and medically dependent households from volatile market prices.
• A national energy debt reduction strategy to tackle the growing burden of arrears, which traps households in cycles of debt.
• Greater protection for ‘unprotected’ fuel-poor households, including those who fall through gaps in current eligibility frameworks.
• Recognition of disabled people and those with essential medical energy needs, ensuring that energy affordability frameworks reflect real, not average, consumption.
• Stronger customer support obligations for energy suppliers, alongside long-term funding for advice providers and the wider third sector.

While long-term change relies on large-scale retrofit to reduce demand and protect households from market shocks, immediate action is urgently needed. Retrofitting is the only sustainable solution to eradicating fuel poverty, but without vital short-term measures, many households will face unacceptable health risks and cold homes. In line with the needs highlighted by Energy Action Scotland, protection of people this winter needs to go hand-in-hand with planning for systemic change to bring an end to fuel poverty for good.

Why this matters for my research - and how you can help shape the future

My research focuses on the intersection of heating decarbonisation and fuel poverty eradication in Scotland, with specific attention being paid to how policy design might further energy equity goals without causing unintended consequences for vulnerable households. The work aligns directly with the EDRC's call to embed equity at the heart of the energy transition and with Energy Action Scotland's urgent demands for fairer, more accessible, and more protective energy policy.

By analysing Scotland’s energy policy landscape and confirming the findings so far with stakeholder interviews, my research aims to understand the ways in which policy can more effectively incorporate lived experience, recognise intersecting vulnerabilities, and ensure that decarbonisation does not exacerbate fuel poverty.

Fuel poverty is a challenge that cannot be resolved by any one sector. It requires collaboration across government, industry, academia, community, third sector organisations and lived-experience experts. If you're a policymaker, practitioner, advisor, third-sector worker or member of an organisation supporting households in Scotland, I would welcome your input.

If you would like to contribute to this research or participate in an interview, please get in touch at megan.scherrer@strath.ac.uk. Together, we can work towards an energy system that is fair, affordable and truly equitable.

About the author: Megan Scherrer is a second year PhD student from CEP working within an EDRC project linked to Energy Action Scotland. 

References

1. Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (2021) ‘Sustainable Warmth Protecting Vulnerable Households in England’. The National Archives.
2. Scottish Parliament (2019) Fuel Poverty (Targets, Definition and Strategy) (Scotland) Act 2019.
3. Bouzarovski, S., Burbidge, M., et al. (2025) ‘Response to the UK Government’s review of the fuel poverty strategy consultation’. Energy Demand Research Centre.
4. Calvillo, C. and Martiskainen, M. (2025) ‘Understanding the barriers and impacts of green choices on people with protected characteristic’. Energy Demand Research Centre.
5. Bouzarovski, S., Karpinska, L., et al. (2025) ‘Networked, fragmented, unequal: The emergent landscape of home energy advice provision in England’, Applied Geography, 181, p. 103682.
6. Sugar, K. et al. (2025) ‘Re-imagining home energy advice in the UK’. Energy Demand Research Centre.
7. Liu, X. et al. (2024) ‘Tackling fuel poverty and decarbonisation in a distributed heating system through a three-layer whole system approach’, Applied Energy, 362, p. 122986.
8. Turner, K. et al. (2024) ‘The economy-wide impacts of different approaches to addressing fuel poverty: the importance of where, when and how public funds are spent’. Energy Demand Research Centre.
9. Scottish Government (2025) Fuel Poverty Scenario Modelling based on Ofgem Energy Price Caps – up to July to September 2025, Fuel Poverty Scenario Modelling based on Ofgem Energy Price Caps – up to July to September 2025.

Image credit: Arthur Lambillotte on Unsplash