Fifty per cent rise in residents who cannot afford heating
Sunday, March 30, 2014 @ 8:00 PM
THE number of residents in Spain who cannot afford to keep their homes at the right temperature in winter or summer has gone up by 50 per cent since 2008, according to a report by the Association of Environmental Sciences (ACA).
One in three Spanish homes where one or more members of the household are on the dole is affected by so-called 'energy poverty', where there is not enough money coming in to keep warm in winter – a condition that causes around 7,000 premature deaths worldwide every year.
According to ACA's report, a household is considered to be in a situation of 'energy poverty' when either its occupants cannot afford enough energy for their 'domestic needs', or where an 'excessive' percentage of their income is used to pay their electricity bills.
Figures taken from the year 2012 show that the number of householders who have to pay more than 10 per cent of their income on electricity or other energy – such as gas or oil – went up by over a third in just two years, and affects over seven million people in the country.
Read more at thinkSPAIN.com