Challenge

How can we help city councils quickly and reliably prove the energy vulnerability of families, within the legal deadline, to guarantee that supply cuts do not occur?

Context and problem

Municipal social services must issue reports to prove the economic vulnerability of families with defaults on basic supplies, as established by the Law 24/2015, on urgent measures to deal with the emergency in the field of housing and energy povertyThis report - the residential exclusion risk report (IRER) - is essential to avoid electricity, gas or water cuts when there is a situation of energy poverty and must be issued within a maximum of 15 days.

In practice, generating this report is a complex, manual and poorly standardized process. Administrations receive files of non-payments from more than fifty supplier companies, each with different formats and structures. From here, the Basic Areas of Social Services (ABSS) must verify multiple data, such as the registration of the owner or situations of dependency and disability, but above all calculating the income of the family unit.

In many cases, this process involves summoning people who appear on the lists of defaulters to go in person to social services and provide the necessary documentation to prove their situation. Calculating income requires collecting information from various sources, applying criteria that are not completely standardized, and interpreting diverse situations, which makes it difficult to systematize.

This process involves a high time commitment, limits the ability to respond within legal deadlines and increases the risk of errors. The impact is especially critical in small municipalities, with fewer resources. In addition, the lack of homogeneity in data and formats makes it difficult to manage cases that tend to be urgent and of high social sensitivity, which can delay the protection of affected families.

Proposed solution

To address this issue, the AOC has launched an innovation pilot project that explores how automation and data interoperability can simplify a key procedure for the protection of social rights. The pilot, launched in 2023, consists of a cloud service that allows you to automate the generation of social energy vulnerability reports.

The solution has been conceived as a shared service for local authorities, without the need for complex technical installations, which reduces the administrative burden on social services teams and guarantees a faster and more homogeneous response to energy poverty situationsThe objective is to facilitate the work of professionals, improve the efficiency of the process and ensure that vulnerable families receive effective protection against the risk of supply cuts.

What is the solution?

The solution is based on a cloud platform that uses process automation technologies (BPM) and which allows the entire report generation cycle to be managed in an integrated manner.

The system allows you to upload to the platform the non-payment files sent by the supply companies to the town councils. It then processes each owner individually and carries out the necessary checks to determine whether the family unit is in a situation of vulnerability. To do this, consult the information available in the interoperability services of Via Oberta and issues the corresponding reports. The processing is carried out in bulk, applying the process to all the data subjects included in the file.

The step-by-step automated process

  • Verification of the register: First of all, the process consults the registry data to check if the person holding the supply contract is registered in the corresponding municipality, as well as the number of cohabitants over the age of 16.
  • Consent verification: If the person is registered, it is checked whether they have an open file with municipal social services and, therefore, whether they have the necessary consent for issuing the report and consulting data through interoperability services.
  • Automated vulnerability calculation: If you have an open social file, you can consult it through Via Oberta income, disability and dependency data and an automated calculation is applied to determine whether the person or family unit is in a situation of vulnerability. This calculation is based on the sum of the income of the living unit, which is compared with the threshold established by the regulations.
  • Automatic report generation: Once the information is validated, the energy poverty report is automatically generated, which is digitally signed with an agency seal. Depending on the results of the checks, different types of report can be generated:
    • Positive report, when the situation of vulnerability is proven and it is necessary to avoid a supply cut.
    • Negative report, when the vulnerability criteria established by the regulations are not met.
    • Non-accreditation report, when the necessary information is not available and the situation cannot be determined (for example, not being registered in the building or not having a social file to be able to make inquiries). Via Oberta).

The system also generates a document with the evidence of the process, such as the data used, where it was obtained and the exact calculation made. This document allows social services staff to review and validate the result generated by the system, if they deem it necessary. This final human supervision ensures that particular or complex cases are not left unattended by the automated operation.

Once the process is complete, the system sends an email notification to the social services professional with access to a secure URL from where they can download the generated reports and all associated documentation. This mechanism facilitates the management of the results and their review in a single point.

Results and impact

The pilot project has validated the technical and organizational feasibility of automating the energy poverty report in a real environment. The pilot began in 2023 in the ABSS of Prat de Llobregat, Granollers and Amposta.

During the development of the pilot, we worked closely with the social services teams of the participating municipalities to qualitatively validate the results of the system and ensure that the vulnerability calculation adequately reflects the real situation of the families. As a result of this joint work, the system's success rate exceeds 90%.

Two years later, the pilot is in operation in almost twenty local authorities, of which 14 are already using it in their daily operations. Professionals from these councils upload the files they receive from the supplier companies to the platform and receive, within a few hours, an email with access to the reports automatically generated by the system. Currently, The average processing time for a batch is 4 hours..

During 2025, the system generated more than 20.000 reports. On average The vulnerability situation (positive or negative) was proven in 52% of casesIn cases where accreditation could not be carried out, in 89% of cases it was because the consent of the person in charge was not available to carry out the necessary interoperability consultations.

Value for local authorities and citizens

Benefits for citizens

  • Response in hours instead of days or weeks. The time to generate the vulnerability report is reduced to a few hours, which allows us to act within the legal deadline and avoid delays in urgent situations.
  • Less risk of power outage. The faster and more systematic generation of reports makes it easier for companies to have the necessary accreditation in time, reducing the risk of power, gas or water cuts in vulnerable homes.
  • Fewer procedures and less burden for the person. Automated data consultation prevents citizens from having to provide documentation that the Administration already has, reducing travel and procedures at a particularly sensitive time.

Benefits for the administration

  • Significant reduction in processing time. The process goes from being manual and intensive to being automated, allowing reports to be generated in a few hours, freeing up time for social services teams.
  • Better quality and traceability of decisions. The system documents the data used and the calculation performed, facilitating the review of cases and reducing the risk of errors.
  • Standardization and improvement in data management. A common calculation and processing model is established, which reduces current variability, improves decision-making and facilitates communication between companies, municipalities and other administrations.
  • Access to advanced capabilities without technological investment. The cloud service model allows municipalities with few resources to access advanced technology without the need for large investments in infrastructure or internal resources.

Conclusion

This AOC pilot project demonstrates that it is possible to transform a manual, complex and heterogeneous process into an automated, scalable and data-driven service. Automation reduces processing time to a few hours, improves the quality and consistency of reports and frees up time for social service teams to focus on caring for people.

The pilot experience, validated with social services professionals, shows that the combination of interoperability, automation and a shared service model can tangibly improve the responsiveness of local administrations in situations of energy vulnerability.

Its extension to more town halls will allow the consolidation of a common, more efficient and equitable model to guarantee the protection of families at risk of energy poverty.

Status of the project

Pilot carried out.

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