João Pedro Gouveia

NOVA School of Science and Technology NOVA University of Lisbon · CENSE - Center for Environmental and Sustainability Research

Fuel poverty is a recognized and increasing problem in several European countries. A growing body of literature covers this topic, but dedicated analysis for Portugal are scarce despite the high perception of this condition. This paper contributes to fill this knowledge gap focusing on a European southern city while bringing new datasets and analys...

h i g h l i g h t s • High spatial scale multi-faceted method for EP regional vulnerability assessment. • Buildings energy performance gaps and socioeconomic variables are combined. • Tool for hotspots identification for local action and comparative analysis. • Both space heating and cooling problems are highlighted for a Southern EU country. a b s...

The Positive Energy District (PED) concept has been pointed out as key for cities' energy system transformation toward carbon neutrality. The PED may be defined as an energy-efficient and flexible urban area with net-zero energy import and greenhouse gas emissions, aiming toward annual local surplus of renewable energy. Most of the studies and prac...

The building sector is one of the critical pieces for the sustainable transformation in Europe. This study assesses the cost-effectiveness of renovation measures for reducing the Portuguese dwelling stock’s space heating and cooling energy needs at national and regional levels. Three different scenarios with varying renovation levels were developed...

Buildings account for 40% of the European Union’s energy consumption. Deep energy renovation of residential buildings is key for decarbonization and energy poverty alleviation. However, renovation is occurring at far below the needed pace and depth. In this context, building renovation one-stop shops, which bring all project phases under one roof a...

Portugal faces substantial energy poverty challenges compared to its EU counterparts, mainly stemming from aged buildings with poor thermal performance. This situation is especially critical for higher education students, who exhibit increased vulnerability to energy poverty due to unstable housing conditions within the private rental sector. Among...

Energy efficiency is vital for energy transitions, and energy-poor, vulnerable, and hard-to-reach groups are at risk of being left behind. In this context, local middle actors have been suggested as partners in deploying targeted energy support. Nevertheless, scarce research has engaged with them to assess if they are willing and capable of contrib...

Climate change affects all sectors of society, and tourism is no exception. Adaptation in this sector is challenging because of its vulnerability to rapid change and uncertainties of an environmental and political nature. Local accommodation (LA) (short-term rentals) plays a key role in the Portuguese economy and is, thus, potentially a key driver...

This paper aims to critically analyse and compare the definition and measurement of energy poverty reflected in the national policy strategies in Portugal and Spain and propose recommendations for their enhancement. The analysis is supported by a systematic literature review of indicators in the Iberian context. Results highlight that both definiti...

This article examines the multidimensional problem of energy poverty, focusing on its connections to climate change and its manifestation at rural and urban scales across selected Euro-pean countries and Israel. The study examined 31 locations in eight countries with diverse geographical and economic backgrounds: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Greece, Nor...

Renewable Energy Communities (REC) can play a crucial role in enhancing citizen participation in the energy transition. Current European Union legislation enshrines energy communities and mandates Member States to encourage these organizations, promoting adequate conditions for their establishment. Nevertheless, uptake has been slow, and more resea...

The links between the political agendas of climate change, the energy transition, and energy poverty are multiple, complex, and overlapping. In line with European Union policy demands, Member States are implementing the various policies necessary to address these agendas, with an emergent focus on their synergistic potential. Successful implementat...

Addressing Europe’s decarbonisation challenge involves widespread deployment of nearly zero-energy buildings, deep energy renovations and renewable energy integration in the building sector. Enhancing energy efficiency in public buildings necessitates tailored solutions and strategic planning involving Local Public Administration. This work focuses...

Hard-to-reach (HTR) energy users encompass individuals who are physically difficult to reach, underserved, or challenging to engage and motivate in demand-side energy programmes. Given a mix of societal challenges (e.g. inequity, energy poverty, decarbonisation, the COVID-19 pandemic), HTR energy users are receiving increasing attention. However, t...

Energy Poverty (EP) is a growing concern in EU and national policies. Limited research has been conducted on students' perception of EP and vulnerability to EP, especially on how this may be modified if the student is a local or an exchange university student and how this interacts with the season (i.e., summer and winter). Therefore, the present r...

Energy poverty is a far-reaching concept that intrinsically bridges numerous fields of study, ranging from engineering to anthropology and medical science to social psychology. The profound implications of energy poverty on the quality of life globally have also led to a wide range of metrics and policies aimed at measuring it and alleviating it, a...

A call for human-nature reconnection echoes among scholars to move consumers towards pro-environmental consumption. When addressing products that are deeply entangled with unconscious human desires and addictive behaviour and that are also part of one of the most toxic industries—such as fashionables—the need for consumer awareness is key. Studies...

Versión traducida al español del documento original: "A toolkit for a just transition with the people"

Under the topics of climate change and sustainable transitions, the importance of policy mix understanding and energy poverty is simultaneously discussed. Both concepts do not have universal definitions, and literature focuses on building the different fragments of each one to design new ways to understand, analyze and develop policies. Energy pove...

Competing agendas are common within the sustainability field, given its complex and diverse social, economic, and environmental priorities. They can cause less effective policy results, where multiple goals can result in trade-offs and policy compromises. This paper proposes a conceptual framework: CompeSA – Assessing Competing Sustainability Agend...

This paper evaluates whether, how, and why policy documents in six diverse European countries (Spain, France, Portugal, the UK, North Macedonia, and Slovenia) link energy poverty to other related policy areas. Our exploratory study suggests that the most explicit links to energy poverty are made in energy efficiency policies rather than in energy p...

Energy poverty is a growing societal issue that puts the welfare of many citizens on both sides of the global north-south divide at risk. It is a multidimensional problem that extends beyond individual households and has linkages and interdependencies with the economic, technological, and social systems with multiple geographical specificities. Con...

Climate change mitigation, the economy’s decarbonisation, and energy poverty reduction are major challenges globally and for the European Union. However, competing agendas might create trade-off situations that hinder the achievement of these goals. Energy efficiency promotion in the residential sector, through the replacement of space heating and...

EU funding agency for research and innovation networks (www.cost.eu). COST Actions help connect research initiatives across Europe and enable scientists to grow their ideas by sharing them with their peers. ENGAGER brings together a diverse and extensive body of stakeholders to help understand and address the energy poverty challenge. ENGAGER consi...

This report aims to investigate, identify and analyse the variety of data sources, datasets, and methods used in the literature for assessing energy poverty at greater spatial resolution for specific contexts, territories, and populations. Ultimately, the goal is to collect helpful information and knowledge, and channel it in the direction of local...

The purpose of this guide is to provide you with a state of the art overview of business, financing and governance models, relevant to the heritage-led regeneration of Historic Urban Areas. This guide is part of the HUB-IN project, which stands for: ‘Hubs of Innovation and Entrepreneurship for the Transformation of Historic Urban Areas’. This proje...

Discover how historic urban areas can be regenerated through entrepreneurship and innovation. - https://atlas.hubin-project.eu/

The drivers of energy poverty are deeply structural-they span, at least, across our current economic, social, employment, energy, climate, taxation, welfare, housing and health policies. Energy poverty causes go far beyond the triad of "low income-poor energy efficiency-high expenditure", which is traditionally considered to set the context to addr...

The purpose of this working paper is to provide an overview of the current context within which the HUB-IN Mission and Vision will be developed and delivered. It presents an analysis of the current state of play of heritage-led regeneration that is already taking place in Historic Urban Areas throughout Europe, and highlights the role that innovati...

The Energy Poverty Advisory Hub has collected more than 200 inspirational cases during a research period that took place in 2021. The EPAH ATLAS is an online interactive database that allows visitors to discover local and international projects as well as measures addressing energy poverty across the world. Visitors can explore the interactive map,...

Raising concerns about the effectiveness of the energy poverty policy actions in Poland, such as Clean Air and Stop Smog, brings forward the need to apply different strategies to identify the energy poor. More than 13.7% of Polish households were energy poor in 2018 according to the ability-to-keep-home-warm indicator. This study proposes enhancing...

The intensity and duration of hot weather and the number of extreme weather events, such as heatwaves, are increasing, leading to a growing need for space cooling energy demand. Together with the building stock’s low energy performance, this phenomenon may also increase households’ energy consumption. On the other hand, the low level of ownership o...

Main topic submission: Energy-efficient and sustainable buildings Keywords: Heritage renovation; Energy Efficiency; Financing; Regulation; Online one-stop-shop

Making public buildings smarter and more energy efficient requires tailored solutions to overcome the barriers in implementing suitable technology options in a large variety of building types. The PrioritEE project aimed to strengthen the policy-making and strategic planning competencies of local and regional public authorities in the energy manage...

The UK has an extensive research base in the field of energy poverty, to the extent that other countries have based their policy approaches on the UK model. Despite this, there is no common method for measuring this condition across the UK. Additionally, sustaining meaningful reductions in UK energy poverty remains a challenge. While significant re...

This policy brief is part of the ENGAGER 2017-2021 Action, supported by COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology). COST is a funding agency for research and innovation networks. COST Actions help connect research initiatives across Europe and enable scientists to grow their ideas by sharing them with their peers. ENGAGER brings together...

This entry describes the linkages between “Drawdown solutions” and the targets and goals set out by the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It is proposed that the implementation of these solutions can substantially help to achieve the SDGs by 2030, with even greater gains when implementing actions in parallel as a “system of solut...

In many European countries, energy poverty is measured on the basis of real energy bills, as theoretical energy costs are hard to calculate. The UK is an exception-the data inputs for the Low Income-High Cost (LIHC) indicator are based on reasonable energy costs, these data are collected through specially designed surveys, often an intensive and co...

Justifications • Dispersed sources of long-term electricity outlook on Africa based on econometric and bottom-up models • Scanty sources of electricity outlook for Africa with disaggregated renewable energy technologies • A new approach that statistically couples the results of multiple outlooks to minimize errors due to single sample

*** Resumen *** _ En este trabajo se propone una recopilación de experiencias realizadas en la península ibérica desarrolladas con el objetivo de identificar áreas en riesgo de pobreza energética. Para ello se muestran algunos indicadores desarrollados en Portugal para la escala nacional en comparación con otros desarrollados en España para la esc...

Project Drawdown is a global research organization that maps climate mitigation solutions in a 'one-stop shop'. In other words, matured and emerging solutions that could help mitigate climate change across Energy system, Food/agricultural/land system, Ocean system, Building system, Transport system, Material/waste system, Social system (including h...

Our latest publication is the first major update to our research and analysis of climate solutions and includes 10 KEY INSIGHTS for possibility and action across sectors.

Energy poverty, a condition whereby people cannot secure adequate home energy services, is gaining prominence in public discourse and on political and policy agendas. As its measurement is operationalised, metrical developments are being socially shaped. A European Union mandate for biennial reporting on energy poverty presents an opportunity to in...

WG2 considers the operationalisation of a multi-scalar, COST-wide framework on energy poverty. In the first of a series of policy briefs, we provide an overview of what is currently known about energy poverty in COST countries, the range of indicators available, and ways to improve data provision. This brief focuses on the pan-European level. Futur...

El trabajo que se presenta explora las posibilidades para desarrollar un método de detección de situaciones de pobreza energética a partir de los datos de consumos energéticos registrados por los nuevos contadores inteligentes que están siendo instalados en sustitución de los tradicionales contadores de pasos. Para ello, resulta necesario contrasta...

The reduction of energy consumption and the increase in energy efficiency is currently an important cornerstone of EU policy. Energy performance certificates (EPCs) were implemented as one of the tools to promote this agenda, and are used for the energy performance assessment of buildings. In this study, the characteristics of the Portuguese dwelli...

Energy poverty seriously affects living conditions and health. In spite of its mild climate, Portugal has been pointed out as one of the most vulnerable countries in the European Union. Due to the multidimensionality of energy poverty, attention needs to be paid to specific factors contributing to it in different contexts. This paper contributes to...

Urban areas constitute over three-fourths of the current global economy, house more than half of the global population and consume more than two thirds of final global energy consumption with the consequential greenhouse gas emissions. New dynamics are occurring with cities becoming vectors of sustainable development, through initiatives like the C...

Smart city (SC) has emerged during the last 2 decades to a broad scientific domain and a dominant industrial market, which attract an interdisciplinary attention. All the scientific fields -from the information and communications technologies (ICT) to the economics and environmental studies or even the humanities- and all the industries -from the I...

Energy Poverty (EP) is the inability to attain a socially and materially necessitated level of domestic en- ergy services. In the EU this occurs primarily due to low incomes, poor energy performance of buildings and high energy costs. The impacts of EP range from impaired social lives to unhealthy living condi- tions, with further consequences in t...

In a world where an increasing share of the population lives in cities, its energy transition is gaining more relevance. The decision-making process in urban planning is frequently fragmented across departments considering different criteria. Integrated city planning approaches are not commonly employed, especially for the promotion of sustainable...

The deep decarbonisation of the power sector coupled with electrification of end-use sectors will be crucial towards a carbon neutral economy, as required to achieve the Paris Agreement's goal. Several studies have highlighted the relevance of electrification under deep decarbonisation. However, previous work does not explore what would be the majo...

The recent decrease in solar photovoltaic (PV) investment cost has transformed the attractiveness of the technology. Southern Europe has one of the highest levels of solar radiation in the world, and policy makers are very keen to take full advantage of this resource for electricity and heat production. However, physiographic characteristics and sp...

Policy brief no. 1, December 2018 Energy poverty-the inability to secure needed levels of energy services in the home-is widespread and expanding across Europe and the world. This policy brief brings together the initial findings and recommendations of the ENGAGER 2017-2021 Action, supported by COST (European CoOperation in Science and Technology)....

Working Group 2: Indicators-developing an operational energy poverty framework • Deploy a wide range of quantitative and qualitative indicators to address the multi-dimensional issue of energy poverty. • Enable the systematic uptake of household, local and regional context-specific data on energy poverty. • Target the differential impacts and inter...

This paper addresses the impacts introduced on Distribution Transformer (DT) aging due to the integration of nearly Zero-Energy Buildings (nZEBs) into existing Low-Voltage Distribution Grids. The study considers a neighborhood in the Portuguese municipality of Évora where buildings are set to become nZEBs using solar Photovoltaic systems. This tran...

Urban areas have a pivotal role to play in climate change mitigation, as they are responsible for a high share of energy consumption and provide many opportunities for more efficient supply & use of energy. This makes the case for energy system modelling at city level, as done within the INSMART EU project, which identified the optimum mix of measu...

This chapter explores the impacts on energy systems of deep decarbonization in Portugal up to 2050. The technological bottom-up model TIMES_PT is used to generate three families of scenarios; a reference case, three deep decarbonization scenarios and three electrification scenarios. Results show that the electrification of the final energy consumpt...

In order to achieve the goal of the Paris Agreement on Climate Change to limit average global temperature rise to well under 2 °C, concerted action will be needed in cities to manage energy consumption and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. But, what can be done at city level to move towards such a global ambitious target? The project InSMART (Integr...

In the Mediterranean area most of the public authorities need to enhance their institutional capacity in the field of Energy Efficiency (EE) and use of Renewable Energy Sources (RES) in order to contribute to the Energy Performance of Buildings and the Energy Efficiency Directives, developing solutions suited to various regional contexts. The Prior...

The European Commission has acknowledged the significance of local and regional communities in its effort to tackle climate change. In this respect a number of initiatives and programmes (e.g. Covenant of Mayors, Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy, CONCERTO, CIVITAS, etc.) have been set up in order to engage European cities in the effort tow...

Daily electricity consumption profiles from smart meters are explored as proxies of active behavior regarding space heating and cooling. The influence of the environment air temperature (multiple maximum and minimum daily thresholds) on electricity consumption was explored for a final sample of 19 households located in southwestern Europe (characte...

Energy consumption is at the core of economic development, but its severe impacts on resources depletion and climate change have justified a call for its general reduction across all economic activities. Lowering households’ energy demand is a key factor to achieve carbon dioxide emission reductions as it has an important energy-saving potential. H...

With the purpose of meeting the set targets for 2020, the EU has steered its policy towards the reduction of building’s energy consumption, which nowadays represents 40% of the EU total energy consumption, mainly through energy efficiency (EE) improvement, as stated in the EU Directive 2010/31. Nevertheless, residential sector cannot disregard the...

The paper provide a better understanding on the actual state of the art for utilities and DSOs seeking their new role as market facilitator with additional insights from market segmentation as well as the potential role of the DSO in the integrated framework for smart cities.

Drawdown maps, measures, models, and describes the 100 most substantive solutions to global warming. For each solution, we describe its history, the carbon impact it provides, the relative cost and savings, the path to adoption, and how it works. The goal of the research that informs Drawdown is to determine if we can reverse the buildup of atmosph...