In the recent years, Energy Poverty (EP) has become a big challenge in the European Union (EU), affecting 50 to 125 million of EU citizens. The EU is working to implement effective actions to tackle it. Home retrofitting is the most impacting solution, but it requires a large amount of money; on the other hand, energy-related behaviour change represents a first step for vulnerable consumers to reduce energy consumption and energy bills. With this aim, ASSIST 2gether project (H2020, Grant Agreement 754051) has created the “Home Energy Advisor” (HEA), trained with an innovative course, about energy, social system and communication skills. The goal of the HEAs is to implement pilot actions to mitigate EP by educating vulnerable consumers and increasing their consumption awareness, through behaviour change. In this paper, the planning and first results of HEAs training are described and analysed, together with the possible impacts on energy poor consumers.

Authors: Anna Realini, Simone Maggiore, Marina Varvesi, Valentina Castello, Corrado Milito