The POWER-TY project

The People and Energy Programme (PEP) within the Manchester Urban Institute (MUI) is a key partner in a unique trans-national initiative – the POWER-TY project (‘Renewable energies for vulnerable groups’).

This project is a part of the Interreg Europe Programme and is co-financed by European Regional Development, with 6 partners and led by the Andalusian Energy Agency. The project has a duration of 42 months, from August 2019 until 2023, and a budget of 1.13 million euros.

POWER-TY aims to address energy poverty by supporting vulnerable households through the development and expansion of renewable energy. The project emphases social innovation through the principles of public participation, policy integration and political empowerment. POWER-TY develops a complete learning process to facilitate knowledge flows among European regions, relying on the shared efforts of 6 partner organisations with mutually complementary levels of expertise and political competence.

It is anticipated that more than 50 best practices and almost 50 events involving 60 stakeholders will lead to the formulation of novel Regional Action Plans focusing on a set of geographical areas totalling more than 25 million people. Read more at the Interreg Europe site. 

MUI’s contribution to the project operates with an understanding of energy poverty as a wider urban and regional phenomenon – moving beyond the triad of incomes, prices and energy efficiency that is dominant in most traditional policy and scientific understandings of the issue. We see energy poverty primarily as an expression of how social and economic life is organised across our cities and countries, and which groups and places are recognised by politicians as deserving of energy policy support, development and subsidies.

Our input within the POWER-TY project is primarily in terms of helping frame energy poverty measurement approaches, identify good practices to address the challenge, develop the methodology for interregional seminars and SWOT analyses, and exchange knowledge through our extensive international expert and stakeholder network.