Energy equity under crisis pricing: the vulnerability-responsiveness paradox in Norwegian residential electricity consumption during the European energy crisis

Dynamic electricity pricing is widely advocated for demand-side management, yet its distributional consequences under crisis conditions remain poorly understood. We examine the equity implications of hourly spot pricing during the European energy crisis using metered consumption from 1136 Norwegian households (October 2020–March 2022) linked to socio-demographic surveys. Southern Norwegian wholesale prices nearly tripled (+192%), and mean household electricity costs rose from 484 to 1785 NOK/month. Energy poverty emerged from a zero baseline: no household exceeded the conventional 10% income-burden threshold before the crisis, versus 1.2% during it, and 6.8% exceeded a 6% burden. Impacts were steeply regressive: the mean burden of the lowest-income group reached 7.4%, against 1.9% for the highest — a fourfold gap. SHAP analysis shows that housing characteristics dominate income and price as predictors of consumption, indicating that vulnerability is structural, rooted in the building stock, rather than purely economic. We term this the vulnerability-responsiveness paradox: the households facing the greatest welfare exposure have the least structural capacity to adjust. Counterfactual simulations show that a 1.0 NOK/kWh price cap cuts poverty to 0.3%, and that pairing the cap with targeted retrofits of high-consumption detached homes performs best across cost, poverty, and inequality simultaneously. Crisis pricing policy should combine short-term price caps with structural building-efficiency programmes.