Trade-offs in insulation retrofits: do energy poverty reduction and high environmental savings go together?

Abstract
Cutting carbon emissions and reducing energy poverty are two urgent objectives in the public housing sector. But do we have to compromise on one objective to realise the other? This paper evaluates the effects of some 10,000 insulation retrofits performed by 128 Dutch public housing providers in 2017-2019, on gas consumption and heating burden of low income tenants. We use longitudinal dwelling and household data and exploit a combination of a difference-in-difference estimator and machine learning. We find, on average, gas savings of 20% and monetary savings equivalent to 0.7% of income. Effects show large heterogeneity: some households save 3 times more gas than others. We find that insulation retrofits might effectively combine environmental savings and energy poverty reduction when targeted to high gas users among the lowest income households.

This is joint work with Vincent Roberdel, Theo Arentze.