Bono Social de Electricidad electricity subsidy assessment

The Bono Social de Electricidad (BSE) is a government programme that seeks to address energy poverty by providing discounts on energy bills to at-risk individuals and families in Spain. 

To be eligible, an applicant has to be either a low earner, unemployed, temporarily unemployed (ERTE), or a business owner whose company has seen earnings drop significantly as a result of having to reduce working hours.

As a result of the complexity of the application process and the lack of information about how the system worked, the Spanish Ministry for Green Energy Transition created BOSCO, a software system that was intended to help decide who is entitled to the subsidy.