Alleviating fuel poverty through energy efficiency measures: the French programme Habiter mieux

Panel: 6. Policies and programmes towards a zero-energy building stock

This is a peer-reviewed paper.

Author:
Ute Dubois, ISG Business School, France

Abstract

The paper is a case study of the French programme “Habiter mieux” that has been launched in 2011 with the objective to realise thermal refurbishments of homes of low-income households. Realising comprehensive thermal renovations of homes of low-income households is desirable not only from a social point of view, but also because these people often live in the worst homes, and therefore thermal renovations allow important energy efficiency gains. But implementing these renovations is a difficult task in contexts where the beneficiaries are in difficulties on many dimensions of their lives. Two factors make these renovations difficult to implement: the beneficiaries may have a limited capacity to contribute financially to the required investments, and they need to be closely accompanied throughout the whole renovation process.

This case study analyses Habiter mieux over the period 2010-2014. It shows that the programme has met initial implementation difficulties and has therefore been reformed in 2013. It discusses the characteristics and the effects of the reform.

Three main lessons can be drawn from this case study . Firstly, this kind of programme needs to be carefully designed. Realising energy efficiency measures for vulnerable households is a highly complex exercise because of the simultaneous presence of several implementation difficulties, both on the “demand” side and on the “supply” side. Secondly, setting up such programmes has an “investment” character because it requires building up specific capacities from the part of the local actors in charge of its implementation. Finally, a consequence of the two previous points is that this type of programme should benefit from a stable framework. Because of their intrinsic implementation difficulties and of their “investment” character, they can be implemented only slowly. Therefore, they should not be subject to frequent adjustments which would modify their implementation conditions too much. Indeed, the design constraints inherent to this type of programmes make them fundamentally different in nature from other policy instruments like for example fiscal incentives or public subsidies.