Authors: Leonidas Vatikiotis
Title: Energy Poverty in Greek Small and Medium Enterprises
Abstract
Energy poverty has emerged as a factor of deterioration of the position of the small enterprises in Greece, according to a qualitative and quantitative research which was carried out on 2019. The occurrence and sharpening of energy poverty was due to the rise in the prices of electricity (by 28% for medium size industries and 177% for households in the period 2006-2017) and the fall in the revenues of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). As a result, 15% of SMEs have unpaid energy bills. In many SMEs (e.g. active in the restaurants and catering sector) energy cost may reach 66% of their profits.
According to the responses of the 19 professionals, nearly all of them coming from different sectors, nearly 1 in 3 out of them is still burdened with arrears and the relevant payment settlements to energy firms. Despite the end of the economic crisis and recession, respondents as a whole (100%) said that their activity is still under the same restrictive regime for meeting their energy needs, as it was the case in the peak of the crisis, at the expense of the quality of the services provided, their living and working conditions.
JEL Classification codes: Q43 Energy and the Macroeconomy & O13 Economic Development Energy
