The number of energy-poor households increased by 70,000 last year compared to 2022 but is significantly lower than in previous years thanks to government measures.

Some 400,000 households on low incomes and living in badly insulated homes were struggling to pay their energy bills in 2023, figures compiled by statistics agency CBS and research institute TNO show.

Without compensation measures such as the energy credit and a cap on energy rates, the number of energy-poor households would have been 885,000 instead of the current total of 396,000, or 4.8% of all households.

Energy prices rocketed in 2022 when Russia limited gas imports in retaliation for European support for Ukraine, but energy poverty had been a problem before then, with over 6% of households unable to pay their energy bills in 2020 and 2021. In 2019, the proportion was even higher at 8%.

As energy prices recovered, people have become more aware of the need to save energy, for instance by lowering the thermostat by one degree or limiting shower time, TNO said, but the main cause for the drop in energy poverty is the higher number of well-insulated homes.

According to TNO, there are some 116,000 households whose degree of energy poverty is not known. These are people who structurally lower the heating and do not cook every day to be able to meet the gas bill. In 2021, some 80,000 households lived in hidden energy poverty.