Infrastructuring text:
COVID-19 led to people utilizing information systems such as zoom or facebook to learn about and receive energy assistance. Low income and elderly households were outside of the normative logics for information systems and energy systems as a whole and were unable to access these resources. How did these populations build resilience or how didn’t they?
COVID-19 is another factor, like climate change, which energy vulnerability research will need to include as a factor in energy insecurity. As stated above in one of my previous answers, poor insulation in housing can create an environment where COVID-19 is more likely to spread. On top of this, acute insecurities such as a temporary outage or broken heater, might lead to situations where people leave their house, as seen in our answers. This is the case even if there is a lockdown, putting them at risk for COVID-19 and could lead to chronic insecurities. What determines each person as energy vulnerable is different depending on health.
This text informs our understanding of COVID-19 because it uses an environmental justice lens to trace the intersectionality of causes, determinants, and conditions leading to and shaping energy insecurity in households. The factors leading to acute energy insecurity are amplified under COVID-19, due to strained energy systems as a result of increased energy use. Populations that experience chronic energy insecurity due to spatial, environmental, financial, and social conditions due to systemic inequalities are facing heightened insecurity as well, considering that sources of income may be diminished for households without stable incomes (and even for households that had stable incomes prior to COVID), and as individuals consume more energy due to stay-at-home orders, thus straining insufficient home energy systems and leading to higher energy bills. Additionally, home energy efficiency retrofits, and home energy system maintenance, is being deferred due to stay-at-home orders and financial constraints, and populations that experience chronic energy insecurity are in most need of these upgrades in order to have more affordable utility bills, and to feel comfortable/healthy in their homes that they're spending more time, with health being paramount as these populations are also experiencing chronic health issues (exacerbated by home temperature) and are more susceptible to contracting a severe case of COVID-19.
With these amplified hardships, energy insecure households are increasingly in need of assistance, either from their utility companies, from government/energy assistance programs, or from third-parties. Energy insecurity is often addressed through financial assisance (e.g. LIHEAP's cash grants), rather than through structural approaches, such as retrofitting homes for efficiency upgrades, which is a short-term approach to energy insecurity. This increased need during COVID-19 requires previously energy insecure households and newly energy insecure households to navigate bureaucratic systems to access resources, and many households are lacking sufficient knowledge and ability to navigate the bureaucracy of utility companies, making it difficult for less educated households to address and prevent energy insecurity.
