Sustainable living is about much more than an affordable home; it is also about having access to affordable clean energy. Social tenants often do not have the financial resources to invest in renewable energy themselves. And in the Flanders region of Belgium, social tenants are not allowed to make structural changes to their homes and to invest themselves in solar panels or heat pumps. After all, they are not the owner of the house; the owner is the housing company.
In order to reduce the energy costs of social tenants, the Belgian government introduced a heavily subsidized system, called “social tariff”. The difference between that tariff and the market price is subsidized by the government. Yet in times of energy crises, this soaks up huge amounts of the government’s budget.
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