Poverty in the midst of plenty: Identifying energy poverty, hardship and vulnerable households in Russia

This article aims to identify Russian households in energy poverty and measure the energy poverty rate by the regions of Russia. For this goal, the 10 well-known energy poverty indicators were reviewed and among them, 6 were employed for identifying energy poverty households in Russia. Based on the Household Budget Survey 2019 households in energy poverty were identified and, as expected, it turned out that the energy poverty rate in Russia is significantly lower than in other countries. In addition to this, we identified the core energy-poverty households, which are defined as the intersection of the 3 energy poverty metrics that are ‘After Fuel Cost Poverty’, ‘Low Income & High Cost’, and ‘Double Median Expenditure’, as well as with hidden energy-poverty households. This is an expansion of the horizon for energy-poverty studies and may be the first attempt to measure the energy poverty rate in Russia. We found that it has conceptual or practical limitations to apply existing energy poverty metrics that are designed for measuring energy poverty in energy-importing countries to Russia and confirm the necessity of developing a new metric for better measurement of energy poverty in energy producers and exporters like Russia. Moreover, despite the low level of national energy poverty rate in Russia, the characteristics of the core energy-poverty households and regional differences in the poverty rate indicate that the energy poverty problem can exist even in energy-rich countries and it is time for Russia to consider establishing a social policy to handle the energy poverty issues.