Calculate energy poverty indices (EU)

Step by step tutorials

Before running any of the examples below, make sure you have processed the Eurostat HBS microdata with hbs_eu(). See Preparing the data for details.

hbs <- hbs_eu(year = 2015, country = "all", path = "raw_data")

For a description of the energy poverty indices calculated by medusa, see Energy poverty indices.

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Example 1. How to calculate a specific energy poverty index

1. Define the index to calculate (e.g. "LIHC") in calc_ep_eu:

file <- calc_ep_eu(data = hbs,       # Output from hbs_eu()
                   index = "LIHC")   # Select the index

2. Save the output data frame to Excel:

library(openxlsx)

write.xlsx(file,
           "EP_LIHC_2015.xlsx",
           sheetName = "LIHC")

The result is a data frame with one row per index and one column per country. Values represent the proportion of households classified as energy poor in each member state according to the selected index.

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Example 2. How to calculate all energy poverty indices

1. Run calc_ep_eu with index = "all" (the default):

file <- calc_ep_eu(data = hbs,
                   index = "all")   # All indices (default)

2. Save the output:

library(openxlsx)

write.xlsx(file,
           "EP_all_2015.xlsx",
           sheetName = "Energy poverty")

The returned data frame contains five rows, one per index (10%, 2M, LIHC, HEP, HEP_LI), and one column per country.

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Example 3. How to calculate indices for a subset of countries

If you processed only a subset of countries in hbs_eu(), calc_ep_eu will automatically calculate indices only for those countries:

hbs_subset <- hbs_eu(year = 2015,
                     country = c("BE", "ES"),
                     path = "raw_data")

file <- calc_ep_eu(data = hbs_subset,
                   index = "all")

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Available indices

Index	Description
10%	Household spends more than 10% of its total expenditure on domestic energy.
2M	Household energy expenditure share is more than twice the national median.
LIHC	Low income (below poverty line after energy costs) AND high energy expenditure (above national median).
HEP	Hidden energy poverty: energy expenditure is less than half the national median.
HEP_LI	Hidden energy poverty AND low income (below poverty line after energy costs).

Thresholds (national medians and poverty lines) are calculated separately for each member state.