Mapping summer energy poverty: The lived experience of older adults in Madrid, Spain

Abstract

Summer energy poverty has been identified as an overlooked issue within energy poverty research. Although there is a growing interest in qualitatively characterizing urban-scale phenomena by paticipative means and public engagement, there is not yet sufficient experiences focused on characterizing community relationships and strategies to cope with excessive heat. During summertime, cities located in southern Europe experience an increase in social activities in public spaces that may respond to a need to find climate shelters and avoid indoor extremes temperatures for those vulnerable households that suffer from summer energy poverty. This paper offers and assesses a participative experiment as a multimodal methodology for the study of the phenomenon. The activities were developed during the summer of 2022 in Madrid. Two workshops focused on collective mapping and neighborhood-led walking tours were conducted, in order to create a participatory cartography that reflects the personal or collective strategies, initiatives and geographies embodied by older adults and driven by summer energy poverty. Conclusions summarize common narratives of older people coping with heat during summertime and offer new resources for policymakers and practitioners. The findings reveal shared resoures for sheltering against excessive heat and, on the contrary, inevitable hot-spots that pose a potential risk to the health of the participant neighbors.