200,000 households trapped below energy poverty line
The poor shiver in winter, swelter in summer and keep lights off in a bid to lower energy bills
The city's poor do not come home to light at night, heat in winter or cool air in summer. Their priority is being able to afford the electricity bill.
Yip, 54, is one of them, surviving on the HK$4,420 social security assistance provided by the government.
He swelters through the summer months as he hardly dares use the air-conditioner. But he still finds it difficult to pay his electricity bill.
"I must still reduce the use of any appliances to keep costs low and save money for food and rent," said Yip, who has heart disease and lives with his 19-year-old daughter in a two-room shack in Tuen Mun that used to be part of a pig farm.
Yip has to spend about HK$400 a month on LPG for cooking and showering and another HK$100 for electricity, which takes up about 10 per cent of his monthly income.
Campaign group World Green Organisation said Yip was only one of many Hongkongers living "under the energy poverty line" - an international standard defined as when a household spends over 10 per cent of total monthly income on energy.