IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/enepol/v137y2020ics0301421519307098.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Who is energy poor? Evidence from the least developed regions in China

Author

Listed:
  • Jiang, Lu
  • Yu, Lu
  • Xue, Bing
  • Chen, Xingpeng
  • Mi, Zhifu

Abstract

Energy poverty has become one of the major challenges faced by the world's energy system. However, there is no consensus on the measure of energy poverty. Several approaches have been proposed, among which the energy poverty line has been defined as the minimum quantity of energy required for basic life, particularly for cooking and heating. This paper estimates the relationship between energy expenditure and household income and identifies the energy poverty line based on the threshold above which the energy share becomes insensitive to household income using household survey data from rural Qinghai, China. Considering the ongoing energy transition and the negative impacts of biomass energy consumption for the environment and health, the study sets a scenario in which all bioenergy consumption is replaced with electricity. The findings show that 57% of rural households in rural Qinghai are energy poor. The phase of energy poverty in terms of basic energy access has passed, so increasing the share of efficient modern energy in household energy consumption requires more attention. Considering the existence of a population that is not income poor but is energy poor, a conventional policy design that primarily targets income-poor households may be inappropriate in this case.

Suggested Citation

  • Jiang, Lu & Yu, Lu & Xue, Bing & Chen, Xingpeng & Mi, Zhifu, 2020. "Who is energy poor? Evidence from the least developed regions in China," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 137(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:enepol:v:137:y:2020:i:c:s0301421519307098
    DOI: 10.1016/j.enpol.2019.111122
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421519307098
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.enpol.2019.111122?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. González-Eguino, Mikel, 2015. "Energy poverty: An overview," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 377-385.
    2. Chen, Le & Heerink, Nico & van den Berg, Marrit, 2006. "Energy consumption in rural China: A household model for three villages in Jiangxi Province," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 58(2), pages 407-420, June.
    3. Hosier, R. H. & Kipondya, W., 1993. "Urban household energy use in Tanzania : Prices, substitutes and poverty," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 21(5), pages 454-473, May.
    4. Niu, Shuwen & Li, Zhen & Qiu, Xin & Dai, Runqi & Wang, Xiang & Qiang, Wenli & Hong, Zhenguo, 2019. "Measurement of effective energy consumption in China's rural household sector and policy implication," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 128(C), pages 553-564.
    5. Zhang, Weishi & Wang, Can & Zhang, Long & Xu, Ying & Cui, Yuanzheng & Lu, Zifeng & Streets, David G., 2018. "Evaluation of the performance of distributed and centralized biomass technologies in rural China," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 125(C), pages 445-455.
    6. Pachauri, Shonali & Jiang, Leiwen, 2008. "The household energy transition in India and China," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 36(11), pages 4022-4035, November.
    7. Elizabeth Frankenberg & Douglas McKee & Duncan Thomas, 2005. "Health consequences of forest fires in Indonesia," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 42(1), pages 109-129, February.
    8. Michael R. Raupach & Steven J. Davis & Glen P. Peters & Robbie M. Andrew & Josep G. Canadell & Philippe Ciais & Pierre Friedlingstein & Frank Jotzo & Detlef P. van Vuuren & Corinne Le Quéré, 2014. "Sharing a quota on cumulative carbon emissions," Nature Climate Change, Nature, vol. 4(10), pages 873-879, October.
    9. Démurger, Sylvie & Fournier, Martin, 2011. "Poverty and firewood consumption: A case study of rural households in northern China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 22(4), pages 512-523.
    10. Xin Tang & Hua Liao, 2014. "Energy poverty and solid fuels use in rural China: Analysis based on national population census," CEEP-BIT Working Papers 57, Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research (CEEP), Beijing Institute of Technology.
    11. Wang, Ke & Wang, Ya-Xuan & Li, Kang & Wei, Yi-Ming, 2015. "Energy poverty in China: An index based comprehensive evaluation," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 308-323.
    12. Hills, John, 2011. "Fuel poverty: the problem and its measurement," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 39270, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    13. Giannini Pereira, Marcio & Vasconcelos Freitas, Marcos Aurélio & da Silva, Neilton Fidelis, 2011. "The challenge of energy poverty: Brazilian case study," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 167-175, January.
    14. Barnes, Douglas F. & Khandker, Shahidur R. & Samad, Hussain A., 2011. "Energy poverty in rural Bangladesh," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(2), pages 894-904, February.
    15. Leach, Gerald, 1992. "The energy transition," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 20(2), pages 116-123, February.
    16. Ping, Xiaoge & Jiang, Zhigang & Li, Chunwang, 2011. "Status and future perspectives of energy consumption and its ecological impacts in the Qinghai-Tibet region," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 15(1), pages 514-523, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Sadath, Anver C. & Acharya, Rajesh H., 2017. "Assessing the extent and intensity of energy poverty using Multidimensional Energy Poverty Index: Empirical evidence from households in India," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 540-550.
    2. Wang, Chengchao & Yang, Yusheng & Zhang, Yaoqi, 2012. "Rural household livelihood change, fuelwood substitution, and hilly ecosystem restoration: Evidence from China," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 16(5), pages 2475-2482.
    3. Lin, Boqiang & Wang, Yao, 2020. "Does energy poverty really exist in China? From the perspective of residential electricity consumption," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 143(C).
    4. Zhang, Dayong & Li, Jiajia & Han, Phoumin, 2019. "A multidimensional measure of energy poverty in China and its impacts on health: An empirical study based on the China family panel studies," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 131(C), pages 72-81.
    5. Li, Jinkai & Gao, Ming & Luo, Erga & Wang, Jingyi & Zhang, Xuebiao, 2023. "Does rural energy poverty alleviation really reduce agricultural carbon emissions? The case of China," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 119(C).
    6. Chen, Feifei & Qiu, Huanguang & Zhang, Jun, 2022. "Energy consumption and income of the poor in rural China: Inference for poverty measures," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 163(C).
    7. He, Xiaoping & Reiner, David, 2016. "Electricity demand and basic needs: Empirical evidence from China's households," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 212-221.
    8. Andadari, Roos Kities & Mulder, Peter & Rietveld, Piet, 2014. "Energy poverty reduction by fuel switching. Impact evaluation of the LPG conversion program in Indonesia," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 436-449.
    9. Muller, Christophe & Yan, Huijie, 2018. "Household fuel use in developing countries: Review of theory and evidence," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 429-439.
    10. Yang, Xiaojun & Xu, Jintao & Xu, Xiaojie & Yi, Yuanyuan & Hyde, William F., 2020. "Collective forest tenure reform and household energy consumption: A case study in Yunnan Province, China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 60(C).
    11. Li, Yunwei & Chen, Kui & Ding, Ruixin & Zhang, Jing & Hao, Yu, 2023. "How do photovoltaic poverty alleviation projects relieve household energy poverty? Evidence from China," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 118(C).
    12. Tiwari, Sunil & Si Mohammed, Kamel & Guesmi, Khaled, 2023. "A way forward to end energy poverty in China: Role of carbon-cutting targets and net-zero commitments," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 180(C).
    13. Wang, Shaobin & Zhao, Chao & Liu, Hanbin & Tian, Xinglei, 2021. "Exploring the spatial spillover effects of low-grade coal consumption and influencing factors in China," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 70(C).
    14. Ma, Wanglin & Zhou, Xiaoshi & Renwick, Alan, 2019. "Impact of off-farm income on household energy expenditures in China: Implications for rural energy transition," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 127(C), pages 248-258.
    15. Chen, Yilin & Shen, Huizhong & Zhong, Qirui & Chen, Han & Huang, Tianbo & Liu, Junfeng & Cheng, Hefa & Zeng, Eddy Y. & Smith, Kirk R. & Tao, Shu, 2016. "Transition of household cookfuels in China from 2010 to 2012," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 184(C), pages 800-809.
    16. Dong, Kangyin & Ren, Xiaohang & Zhao, Jun, 2021. "How does low-carbon energy transition alleviate energy poverty in China? A nonparametric panel causality analysis," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 103(C).
    17. Recep Ulucak & Ramazan Sari & Seyfettin Erdogan & Rui Alexandre Castanho, 2021. "Bibliometric Literature Analysis of a Multi-Dimensional Sustainable Development Issue: Energy Poverty," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(17), pages 1-21, August.
    18. Bezerra, Paula & Cruz, Talita & Mazzone, Antonella & Lucena, André F.P. & De Cian, Enrica & Schaeffer, Roberto, 2022. "The multidimensionality of energy poverty in Brazil: A historical analysis," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 171(C).
    19. Guta, Dawit Diriba, 2014. "Effect of fuelwood scarcity and socio-economic factors on household bio-based energy use and energy substitution in rural Ethiopia," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 75(C), pages 217-227.
    20. Ye, Yuxiang & Koch, Steven F., 2021. "Measuring energy poverty in South Africa based on household required energy consumption," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 103(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:enepol:v:137:y:2020:i:c:s0301421519307098. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/enpol .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.