ABSTRACT
Energy Poverty (EP) is a phenomenon that has increasingly attracted attention since 1975. Accordingly, literature on the phenomenon has been accumulating, leading to numerous ways in which EP is understood. Yet, literature still indicates that defining EP remains elusive. Some technical research tends to mono-dimensionally define EP, allowing generalisation across administrative-spatial contexts. Studies of EP policy, however, claim that ambiguity, complexity, and multidimensionality are inherent characteristics of EP. Any mono-dimensional approach that ignores this “multidimensionality” is unlikely to reliably measure EP in different contexts. This chapter provides an empirical analysis of the European Union (EU) member states' National Energy and Climate Plans (NECPs). The analysis explores whether the NECPs' representations of EP also reflect the characteristics of ambiguity, complexity, and multidimensionality. We analyse our data with a Sociology of Knowledge Approach to Discourse (SKAD) version of discourse analysis. We argue that these characteristics are deeply rooted in the current EU policy discourse on EP. To engage with these characteristics constructively and build upon call to “rethink theorisation” of EP, we reconstruct the phenomenon in terms of vulnerability.
