Summers are getting hotter, but Bulgaria treats energy poverty mainly as a heating problem, concludes the report “Summer Energy Poverty in Bulgaria - Overview and Recommendations“, published by the Ecological Association "For the Earth".
It also says that there is a lack of data, goals and policies for people who cannot maintain a safe temperature in their homes in the summer. The analysis is to be distributed to the responsible institutions - the Ministry of Labor and Social Policy, the Ministry of Regional Development and Public Works, the Ministry of Energy, the Ministry of Environment and Water.
Bulgaria has had a definition of energy poverty since 2023, and a mechanism to support the most vulnerable households during the heating season has been in place for years. However, similar policies for the summer are fragmented; the analysis shows that energy, health, social and climate policies are scattered in different documents that do not correspond to each other and do not complement each other. “It is striking that cooling is mechanically “glued“ to heating in most documents, without any real measures behind it,“ says one of the authors of the report, Desislava Stoyanova, CEE Bankwatch Network. In this respect, our country is not unique - a similar gap is also noticeable in other countries, but it is time to take measures, she points out.
The need for cooling is growing, the summer of 2025 is the third hottest in Bulgaria since 1930, and in Europe, cooling day degrees, an indicator of the need for energy to cool buildings, have increased nearly fourfold between 1979 and 2022. This year will be remembered for the heat waves in France and Germany, but the data has not yet been summarized. Prolonged hot periods are no longer just a matter of a few particularly warm days. The picture is also complemented by hot nights, which means that buildings fail to give off the accumulated heat.
Air conditioning is not always a solution and is certainly not the best, the report says. For one household, air conditioning can contribute to comfort, but for another, its use alone can mean an unaffordable bill. It is striking that some of the most effective measures are better ventilation, shading with shutters, pergolas, blackout, and these are missing as recommendations for cooling in the regulatory framework. The practice in building renovation is that measures only take into account comfort during the cold months, but not during the warm months. This accumulates many small but significant gaps: there are no specific indicators for summer energy poverty, there is not enough data on whether people can maintain comfortable temperatures in their homes and, accordingly, there are no clear measures either to prevent or deal with the problem.
Although to some extent the lack of analysis and data is characteristic of the whole of Europe, there are also working examples. The COOLTORISE project, implemented in Spain, Italy, Greece and Bulgaria, shows that with relatively cheap passive solutions and a change in behavior, a tangible improvement in thermal comfort can be achieved. In Madrid, 78% of project participants reported improvement. In Bulgaria, similar activities have been implemented in Pazardzhik and Peshtera. In Getafe, Spain, the municipality is including the risk of overheating in the renovation of municipal housing and is taking measures to improve the buildings.
As the example shows, a change in the way institutions work is needed. Data must be translated into specific goals and measures in national policies, including the Integrated National Plan “Energy and Climate“, the Social Climate Plan and building renovation programs. Along with heating aid, there must be a mechanism to support the cooling costs of the most vulnerable households during prolonged hot periods. And any renovation program must take into account not only how much energy the building will save in winter, but also whether it will remain habitable and comfortable in summer.