First name: Emma
Last name: Polinsky
Class Year: 2025
Advisor: Rob Klee
Essay Abstract:
Energy poverty–the lack of essential, affordable, reliable, and safe energy services–is agrowing problem worldwide. In Spain, the problem has manifested in disconnections–residents being cut off from power due to inability to pay. The Alliance Against Energy Poverty (APE) was created in 2014 to address the growing concerns of residents unable to afford basic energy services. Catalan Law 24/2015 was created as a result of their efforts, which requires energy companies to notify social services prior to disconnections. The law also creates a class of “energy vulnerable households,” which may not be cut off under any circumstances. This paper aims to analyze the work of APE in both its work to establish the Law 24/2015 and later to improve the implementation and enforcement of the law. I examine APE as a node–a site within an organizing governing structure where knowledge, capacity and resources are mobilized to manage a course of events. APE’s work in Catalonia and broader national impacts present a potential model for use of the nodal governance framework in the context of other subnational, autonomous regions that are wrestling with the issue of energy poverty.