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

摘要

The paper is a case study of the French programme “Habitermieux” that has been launched in 2011 with the objective to realisethermal refurbishments of homes of low-income households.This programme was designed to target low-income households,a population for which few countries have elaborated thermalrenovation programmes. Realising comprehensive thermal renovationsof homes of low-income households is desirable not onlyfrom a social point of view, but also because these people oftenlive in the worst homes, and therefore thermal renovations allowimportant energy efficiency gains. But implementing theserenovations is a difficult task in contexts where the beneficiariesare in difficulties on many dimensions of their lives. Two factorsmake these renovations particularly difficult to implement: thebeneficiaries have a limited capacity to contribute financially tothe required investments, and they need to be closely accompaniedthroughout the whole renovation process.This case study analyses Habiter mieux over the period2010–2014. It shows that the programme has met initial implementationdifficulties and has therefore been reformed in 2013.It discusses the characteristics and the effects of the reform.Three main lessons can be drawn from the case study of Habitermieux. Firstly, this type of programme needs to be carefullydesigned. Realising energy efficiency measures for vulnerablehouseholds is a highly complex exercise because of the simultaneouspresence of several implementation difficulties, both onthe “demand” side and on the “supply” side. Secondly, setting upthis kind of programme has an “investment” character becausethis requires building up specific capacities from the part of thelocal actors in charge of implementing it. Finally, a consequenceof the two previous points is that this type of programme shouldbenefit from a stable framework. Because of their intrinsic implementationdifficulties and of their “investment” character,they can be implemented only slowly. Therefore, they should notbe subject to frequent adjustments which would modify theirimplementation conditions too much. Indeed, the design constraintsinherent to this type of programmes make them fundamentallydifferent in nature from other policy instruments likefor example fiscal incentives or public subsidies.