Amid global turmoil and a weak yen, energy poverty emerges as a concern in Japan

Sendai – It was January 2021 in Sendai, and the city was in a deep winter freeze.

A woman, in her 50s and out of work, had her water services shut off due to late payments, as well as her gas. Unable to cook at home or afford much of anything, and with public water faucets frozen solid, she spent a week eating raw eggs and drinking snowmelt before reaching out to a local food bank for help.

The woman’s case, recounts Saori Kasahara, a graduate student and volunteer with Food Bank Sendai, helped the organization realize that most of their beneficiaries were facing some level of energy poverty — forced to choose between “heat or eat” or, in many cases, unable to afford enough of either.

It also highlights a growing issue that, amid rising costs due to overseas conflicts and a weak yen, goes far beyond Sendai.

The European Union, where awareness of the issue is relatively high, describes energy poverty as occurring when a household must reduce energy consumption to a degree that negatively impacts health and wellbeing. There are other definitions as well, such as when a high percentage of household expenditure is spent on energy.

One primary factor that contributes to energy poverty is, understandably, low income. Roughly 15% of Japan’s population lives in “relative poverty,” according to the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare.

However, University of Osaka lecturer Hayato Koga points out that other factors, such as rising energy prices and housing conditions, also play a part. “Reducing the issue to just a matter of income downplays and oversimplifies the problem,” he says.

Being unable to meet the energy needs for a decent standard of living can negatively impact one’s mental health, opportunities for social interaction and performance at school and work, alongside serious health impacts, such as heat stress in the summer.

An LNG tanker is moored at a thermal power station in Futtsu, Chiba Prefecture. Energy poverty has been rising in Japan since the 2000s, spurred by the March 2011 triple disaster, the Russia-Ukraine war and the weak yen. | REUTERS

Energy poverty has been rising in Japan since the 2000s, spurred by the March 2011 triple disaster, the Russia-Ukraine war and the weak yen, according to research by University of Tsukuba professor Shinichiro Okushima. Based on his methodology, roughly 10% of households in Japan are in a state of energy poverty.

Currently, energy poverty is not named in Japan’s national policies, a step experts say would help raise awareness and galvanize action.

Existing measures — from welfare fuel allowances to energy-efficiency targets — indirectly address the issue to a certain extent. However, experts and advocates are calling for both improvements to existing systems and further measures to fully tackle energy poverty in Japan.

The vulnerable

Researchers and advocates have identified various trends in energy-vulnerable groups.

One such cohort is older adults living alone, a group that is expected to account for over 20% of households by 2050, up from 13.2% in 2020, according to a paper published earlier this year by Okushima and colleagues. Older adults tend to have lower income but spend more time at home.

“Since rural areas have increasingly aging populations and a larger proportion of people living alone in older homes, we could see energy poverty rise especially in the countryside,” Okushima says.

Those living in rural areas tend to depend on cars for transportation and often don’t have access to the cheaper city gas networks, which adds to their energy expenses, according to Okushima’s research.

Immigrants are another group potentially at risk, according to members of Food Bank Sendai, which was established in 2020 to serve those out of work due to the COVID-19 pandemic but which has expanded its scope since. About half of the food bank’s roughly 10,000 beneficiaries in 2025 were foreign nationals, primarily students from Asian nations attending Japanese school or a vocational school while working part-time jobs, says Shinsei Mori, the food bank’s director.

“With soaring prices and relatively low wages, many international students are struggling to make ends meet,” Mori says.

Kasahara adds that immigrants may face a language barrier if they fall behind on utility payments and need to find a solution. Even for those fluent in Japanese, the steps before a utility shuts off power due to late payments, and accessing avenues for recourse, can be opaque, she says.

Another key consideration when it comes to energy poverty in Japan is the lack of insulation in residential buildings, especially older ones, Koga notes. Low-income households often have no choice but to live in poorly insulated homes with inefficient heating and cooling systems, meaning they have to use even more energy if they hope to make the space comfortable.

Justice and rights

Climate change is making Japan’s summers hotter, raising cooling costs apace. However, Okushima highlights that it is also critical to ensure that climate change countermeasures, especially the transition to clean energy, do not inadvertently exacerbate energy poverty, too.

“If measures such as carbon pricing or renewable energy surcharges passed on to all ratepayers equally, regardless of economic status, place a heavier burden on low-income households, then their energy security could deteriorate,” he says.

One example of such a policy is Japan’s Feed-in-Tariff (FIT; a Feed-in-Premium system was also introduced in 2022), a renewable energy promotion framework in which renewable energy is purchased by utilities at a fixed price, with the surcharge borne by ratepayers. For fiscal year 2026, the economy ministry, which sets Japan’s energy policies, calculated that a household consuming 400 kWh of electricity per month would pay an annual ¥20,064 in FIT/FIP surcharges.

Air conditioner units outside an apartment building in Tokyo. Among the various measures experts recommend to help alleviate energy poverty, square one is to simply name it — a step the Japanese government has yet to take. | REUTERS

Energy prices are also easily impacted by world events due to Japan’s low energy self-sufficiency rate, which stood at 16.3% in 2024.

“Higher energy prices due to issues like the Ukraine war or the situation in Iran naturally have an impact” on energy poverty, Okushima says. “And with the weak yen, the bottom line is that if inflation occurs, energy poverty will of course worsen.”

In Mori’s view, another factor exacerbating energy poverty is the privatization of utilities, which he sees as an ongoing trend in Japan. “Private utilities generally don’t wait for customers who can’t pay. We’ve seen this happen many times with propane gas providers, in particular,” he says.

One food bank beneficiary, a woman in her 50s living on welfare, had her gas shut off by her utility even though she had told the company she would pay her bill with her next welfare allowance. A total of 557 households receiving support from Food Bank Sendai had a utility cut in fiscal year 2025.

“The essentials for human survival are being commodified, and if you don’t have money, you can’t use them,” Mori says. “I’ve come to think that energy poverty violates an individual’s right to life.”

Citizen-led initiatives

Among the various measures experts recommend to help alleviate energy poverty, square one is to simply name it — a step the Japanese government has yet to take.

For Okushima, a lack of recognition is a primary concern.

“Adopting an official definition of energy poverty has a pivotal role in recognizing the problem, making it visible and, finally, in adopting the necessary measures to counteract it,” Okushima and colleagues wrote in a 2022 book.  

Still, even without using the term itself, some existing measures do partially address the issue. For example, “winter allowances” incorporated into Japan’s welfare system are intended to help cover heating costs, although Koga called current welfare levels overall insufficient to meet a basic standard of living.

“Many improvements could be made by tweaking the existing system,” he says.

Vessels in the Strait of Hormuz near the beach of Bandar Abbas, Iran, on Thursday. The war in the Middle East has added to concerns about energy poverty in Japan. | West Asia News Agency / via REUTERS

In addition, in 2025 and 2026, the government stepped in to subsidize summer electricity and gas prices for all households, and did the same this past winter.

Another key recommendation from experts is to improve the energy efficiency of buildings and home appliances. Possible measures include mandating higher efficiency standards or providing subsidies, particularly ones targeting households experiencing energy poverty, to retrofit existing housing stock.

“Housing measures are considered some of the most important because they can reduce energy costs over the medium to long term,” Okushima explains.

Japan has set national targets for buildings to achieve net-zero emissions through a combination of high efficiency and on-site clean energy generation. Local governments, too, are establishing related measures, such as the Tokyo Metropolitan Government subsidizing part of the cost of high-efficiency air conditioners and other appliances, up to ¥80,000 for older adults and individuals with disabilities. In 2026, Tokyo and the city of Kawasaki also mandated solar panels on certain new-built homes, while Sendai set similar requirements regarding solar panels and thermal efficiency in new builds.

However, Koga points out that policies targeting homeowners may benefit the middle-class more than low-income households, as the latter often lack the financial means to buy and build homes. “The question of what to do about the existing, low-quality housing stock has not been institutionalized at all,” he says.

Citizen organizations can also address energy insecurity. For example, the HOME Project, run by Japanese climate campaign Power Shift, helps organizations tackling poverty switch their facilities to clean energy and promotes energy-efficiency improvements.  

As another potential initiative, Koga raises the example of “energy advice” organizations in Europe and the U.K. These groups help improve households’ energy security in ways such as enhancing efficiency, switching utility providers and accessing public support measures. While often run as nonprofits, some municipalities provide similar support, such as London’s Islington borough, whose website encourages residents and local businesses to “Find out how we can help you save money by cutting down on your energy and water bills.” Although a handful of similar services exist in Japan, including part of Food Bank Sendai’s work, energy advice organizations dedicated to tackling energy poverty specifically are vanishingly rare.

Koga emphasizes that both citizen initiatives and greater government support are indispensable in addressing energy poverty.

“The voices of local citizens are truly important, through both community-rooted measures and changing the very structure of the system itself,” he adds.

Since beginning to engage with the issue of energy poverty in 2021, Food Bank Sendai and partner organizations have conducted surveys, staged a public protest, and requested that utilities serving the area provide more flexible support for late payments.

“While recognizing the importance of the role played by government agencies, we also need to build systems ourselves to protect our livelihoods,” Mori says, naming decentralized energy sources as one example.

These days, Kasahara says she is working with international students on initiatives such as farming and putting on monthly community meals, which also provide a space for people to connect.

“Although (the students) were initially receiving aid themselves, they have thrown themselves into these projects energetically,” she recalls. “They say, ‘I want to make a change myself.’”