Building and fuel poverty, an index to measure fuel poverty: An Italian case study

•How to measure a building energy index to find fuel poverty.•How to use energy performance certificates in order to define.•The building fuel poverty index as a tool to drive policy choice.

Fuel Poverty is a big challenge for everybody: politicians, decision-makers, technicians, researchers, etc. In Italy, a strategy to solve fuel poverty involves action in order to reduce energy prices, the AEEG (Italian regulatory authority for electricity gas and water) has defined an Assist Tariff for poor people. Fuel poverty depends on family income and energy prices. Building energy performance also influences required energy consumption, and is a contributing cause of fuel poverty. Subsequently, it is possible to introduce a new Fuel Poverty risk Index, correlated to Building Energy Performance: the Building Fuel Poverty index. The Building Fuel Poverty Index (BFP) allows us to quantify how many buildings need direct action and/or just economic incentives.The index should be adopted in order to identify subjects that can afford to pay building energy refurbishment. The paper proposes an index in order to evaluate fuel poverty condition correlated to building energy performance.