Renewable Energy Mandates Are Making Poor People Poorer: New at Reason

Escalating electricity prices are regressive—poorer people pay a higher proportion of their incomes heating and cooling their houses than do richer people. Low-income folks also tend to live in draftier dwellings and retain older, less energy-efficient appliances and climate-control systems. Consequently, anything that raises the price of power will impose bigger relative costs on the poor.

As renewable energy mandates and rising “ecological” taxes have driven up electricity prices, an increase in energy poverty has become a problem in countries such as Germany and the United Kingdom, writes Reason‘s Ronald Bailey.

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