Household energy poverty: The concept, issues and implications for Turkiye

The first recognition of energy poverty concept dates to the 1970s. However, the concept did increasingly attract attention only recently. The main reason for increasing attention for en-ergy poverty as an issue to tackle is the growing awareness that energy is not a luxury service for households but an indispensable resource for livelihood. Along with the growing interest in household energy poverty issues, especially of academia, there exists an ongoing debate and variety of approaches as to how energy poverty can or should be defined and measured, par-ticularly in the EU countries. And Turkiye, made subject to a few studies of household energy poverty, is no exception to this situation: Turkiye is among the countries that have not official-ly defined energy poverty yet. But even so, according to the 2019 Turkish Statistical Institute (TURKSTAT) data, inability of heating the dwelling due to insufficient insulation was found to be the most important problem of households in Turkiye. Therefore, this paper attempts to review the extent of the issue in Turkiye by making use of previous studies and evaluating current information and data on the issue in the country.