Willing But Unable - Aurore Dudka

About this episode

Aurore Dudka discusses the challenges faced by vulnerable households in engaging with the EU's energy flexibility agenda.

The EU's flexibility agenda promises to empower consumers. Demand-side response, dynamic tariffs, smart meters — the idea is that households can take control of their energy use and benefit from the transition. The evidence is less tidy. Vulnerable households are often willing to engage. What stops them is not reluctance — it is the architecture of their daily lives: caring responsibilities, health conditions, insecure housing, inflexible routines. When policy reads low participation as apathy, it designs for the wrong problem. Aurore Dudka is a researcher. She returns to Energ'Ethic with a systematic review of 66 empirical studies on demand-side response and energy-vulnerable households ( Energy Research & Social Science , March 2026) , and a co-authored analysis of gender and the energy transition ( inGenere , January 2026 ). What this episode covers: Willingness vs. capacity. Vulnerable households want to participate in flexibility programmes. What constrains them is structural — rigid routines, limited technology access, low digital literacy, insecure tenure. Treating low uptake as disinterest produces schemes that exclude the households they were built for. Up to 20%…

People in this episode

Host: Marine Cornelis

Guest: Aurore Dudka

Topics covered

• energy transition
• vulnerable households
• demand-side response
• dynamic tariffs
• energy policy
• consumer empowerment

Keywords

• energy use
• flexibility programmes
• low participation
• dynamic pricing
• energy bills
• digital literacy
• structural constraints

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Energy Research & Social Science, inGenere

Places: EU

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