More than 20% of the population lived, in 2023, in households where there was no financial capacity to keep the accommodation comfortably warm, 3,3 percentage points more than in the previous year, according to INE data released today.
According to the Living Conditions and Income Survey (ICOR), whose results were published by the National Statistics Institute (INE), last year, 20,8% of the population lived without the financial capacity to keep their home adequately heated.
According to INE, Portugal was, in 2022, one of the five countries in the European Union where this disability was highest, at 17,5%, almost double the European average of 9,3%.
The percentage of the population at risk of poverty without the financial capacity to keep their home adequately heated (37,3%) represented more than double that of the rest of the population (17,4%), and particularly affected the elderly (28,5% for the age group 65 and over).
“The situation in terms of thermal comfort is even more accentuated, if we consider that, in addition to the proportion of those who were in a precarious thermal situation for financial reasons, an additional 21,6% reported living in a situation where the accommodation is not warm enough. in winter for other reasons, and that 38,3% live in accommodation that is not adequately cool in summer”, noted the statistical authority.
Last year, 26,6% of the population lived in accommodation where no type of heating was used at home, a proportion that was much higher in the Autonomous Regions (86% in Madeira and 72,6% in the Azores) than in the Continent (24%).
The proportion of people who lived in accommodation where no type of heating was used at home was higher in situations of poverty, with 39,7% of people in that group reporting not using heating at home, which compares to 23,9. XNUMX% of the remaining population.
Of the 73,1% who reported using heating, the most used system was non-central fixed heating (33,5%) and the main source of energy used was electricity (48,5%), followed by firewood (36,1%). %).
Regarding the type of glass in the windows, around half of the population reported having double glazing, 40,9% single glazing and 7,1% a mix of single and double/triple glazing.
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