IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/enepol/v210y2026ics0301421525005087.html

Community-based processes of energy poverty in indigenous communities in Mexico: The case study of Pixyah, Yucatan

Author

Listed:
  • Canto-Franco, O.
  • Mendoza-Vizcaino, Javier
  • San-Pedro, L.
  • Brown, A.
  • Cedano-Villavicencio, K.G.
  • Sarmiento-Franco, J.F.
  • Escalante Soberanis, M.A.

Abstract

This study examines energy poverty in the Indigenous community of Pixyah, Yucatán, Mexico, located within the Ring of Cenotes, a protected natural reserve. In this region, electricity services are frequently intermittent, and potable water is extracted from underground aquifers through electromechanical pumping systems. Such conditions directly affect the community's ability to meet basic needs and exacerbate living precariousness. The research compares the impact of incorporating contextually relevant indicators into the Multidimensional Energy Poverty Index (MEPI) and the Capabilities-driven Energy Satisfactors Index (CESI) through the integration of community perspectives during their formulation. Two additional variables were introduced “uninterrupted electricity supply” and “access to potable water” to better reflect local realities. The findings reveal that the community's MEPI exceeds 50 %, indicating that at least half of the population fails to meet the evaluated dimensions. However, the results also suggest that this value could be improved to approximately 20 % through the implementation of community-based solutions and locally driven initiatives. These results suggest that further contextual adjustments to the MEPI are necessary to improve its accuracy and applicability in specific social and territorial contexts.

Suggested Citation

  • Canto-Franco, O. & Mendoza-Vizcaino, Javier & San-Pedro, L. & Brown, A. & Cedano-Villavicencio, K.G. & Sarmiento-Franco, J.F. & Escalante Soberanis, M.A., 2026. "Community-based processes of energy poverty in indigenous communities in Mexico: The case study of Pixyah, Yucatan," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 210(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:enepol:v:210:y:2026:i:c:s0301421525005087
    DOI: 10.1016/j.enpol.2025.115001
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421525005087
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.enpol.2025.115001?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

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Pereira, Diogo Santos & Marques, António Cardoso, 2023. "How do energy forms impact energy poverty? An analysis of European degrees of urbanisation," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 173(C).
    2. Stefan Bouzarovski & Karla G. Cedano-Villavicencio & Laurence L. Delina & Mari Martiskainen & Tony G. Reames & Neil Simcock, 2025. "Reframing how we talk about ‘energy poverty’," Nature Energy, Nature, vol. 10(7), pages 806-810, July.
    3. Koomson, Isaac & Orkoh, Emmanuel & Ahmad, Shabbir, 2023. "Non-farm entrepreneurship, caste, and energy poverty in rural India," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 127(PA).
    4. Tovar Reaños, Miguel A. & Palencia-González, F. Javier & Labeaga, Jose M., 2025. "Measuring and targeting energy poverty in Europe using a multidimensional approach," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 199(C).
    5. Barkat, Karim & Alsamara, Mouyad & Mimouni, Karim, 2023. "Can remittances alleviate energy poverty in developing countries? New evidence from panel data," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 119(C).
    6. Salman, Muhammad & Zha, Donglan & Wang, Guimei, 2022. "Assessment of energy poverty convergence: A global analysis," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 255(C).
    7. Barrera-Santana, J. & Marrero, Gustavo A. & Ramos-Real, Francisco J., 2022. "Income, energy and the role of energy efficiency governance," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 108(C).
    8. Hall, Rebecca & Kenway, Steven & O'Brien, Katherine & Memon, Fayyaz, 2025. "Quantification of residential water-related energy needs cohesion, validation and global representation to unlock efficiency gains," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 207(C).
    9. Müller, Andreas & Hummel, Marcus & Smet, Koen & Grabner, Daniel & Litschauer, Katharina & Imamovic, Irma & Özer, Fatma Ece & Kranzl, Lukas, 2024. "Why renovation obligations can boost social justice and might reduce energy poverty in a highly decarbonised housing sector," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 191(C).
    10. Andrade-Arias, Ana Sofia & Kabir, Golam & Mirmohammadsadeghi, Mehdi & Gunasekaran, Angappa & Elizondo-Noriega, Armando, 2025. "Exploring public perspectives on solar energy adoption in Mexico," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 212(C).
    11. Perros, T. & Allison, A.L. & Tomei, J. & Aketch, V. & Parikh, P., 2023. "Cleaning up the stack: Evaluating a clean cooking fuel stacking intervention in urban Kenya," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 188(C).
    12. Clavijo-Núñez, Susana & Herrera-Limones, Rafael & Rey-Pérez, Julia & Torres-García, Miguel, 2022. "Energy poverty in Andalusia. An analysis through decentralised indicators," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 167(C).
    13. Feenstra, Mariëlle & Özerol, Gül, 2021. "Energy justice as a search light for gender-energy nexus: Towards a conceptual framework," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 138(C).
    14. Rahut, Dil Bahadur & Aryal, Jeetendra Prakash & Manchanda, Navneet & Sonobe, Tetsushi, 2024. "Examining energy justice: Empirical analysis of clean cooking transition across social groups in India, 2004–2018," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 193(C).
    15. Che, Xiahui & Zhu, Bangzhu & Wang, Ping, 2021. "Assessing global energy poverty: An integrated approach," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 149(C).
    16. Hwang, Young Kyu & Sánchez Díez, Ángeles, 2024. "Renewable energy transition and green growth nexus in Latin America," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 198(C).
    17. Charlier, Dorothée & Legendre, Bérangère & Ricci, Olivia, 2024. "Water and energy deprivation: Addressing the problem of essential utility services poverty in Mayotte," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 195(C).
    18. Henry, Candise L. & Baker, Justin S. & Shaw, Brooke K. & Kondash, Andrew J. & Leiva, Benjamín & Castellanos, Edwin & Wade, Christopher M. & Lord, Benjamin & Van Houtven, George & Redmon, Jennifer Hopo, 2021. "How will renewable energy development goals affect energy poverty in Guatemala?," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 104(C).
    19. Urquiza, Anahí & Billi, Marco, 2020. "Seguridad hídrica y energética en América Latina y el Caribe: definición y aproximación territorial para el análisis de brechas y riesgos de la población," Documentos de Proyectos 46408, Naciones Unidas Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe (CEPAL).
    20. Cavana, G. & Becchio, C. & Bottero, M., 2025. "Feasibility and evolution studies on renewable energy communities in cities," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 213(C).
    21. Jayasinghe, Maneka & Selvanathan, E.A. & Selvanathan, Saroja, 2021. "Energy poverty in Sri Lanka," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 101(C).
    22. Śmiech, Sławomir & Karpinska, Lilia & Bouzarovski, Stefan, 2025. "Impact of energy transitions on energy poverty in the European Union," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 211(C).
    23. Tiare Robles-Bonilla & Karla G. Cedano, 2021. "Addressing Thermal Comfort in Regional Energy Poverty Assessment with Nussbaumer’s MEPI," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(1), pages 1-16, January.
    24. Clavijo-Núñez, Susana & Núñez-Camarena, Gina M. & Herrera-Limones, Rafael & Hernández-Valencia, Miguel & Millán-Jiménez, Antonio, 2024. "The importance of citizen participation in improving comfort and health in obsolete neighbourhoods affected by energy poverty," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 191(C).
    25. Berka, Anna L. & Hoicka, Christina E. & Sperling, Karl, 2025. "The political economics of civic energy: A framework for comparative research," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 211(C).
    26. Ngarava, Saul & Zhou, Leocadia & Ningi, Thulani & Chari, Martin M. & Mdiya, Lwandiso, 2022. "Gender and ethnic disparities in energy poverty: The case of South Africa," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 161(C).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Basilico, Paolo & Cartanese, Giuliana Michela & D'Adamo, Idiano & Ferrazza, Marco & Gastaldi, Massimo & Uricchio, Antonio Felice, 2026. "Renewable energy communities and energy poverty: Social and policy insights from empirical research in Italy," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 210(C).

    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. Cheng, Shulei & Wang, Kexin & Chen, Yongtao & Meng, Fanxin, 2025. "Temporal-spatial decomposition and multi-scenario prediction analysis of energy poverty in China," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 219(C).
    2. Zaidan, Sara & El Fadel, Mutasem, 2026. "How representative is SDG7 of energy poverty in politically unstable landscapes? Guiding measurement and monitoring from perceptions to realities," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 210(C).
    3. Zhao, Congyu & Dong, Kangyin & Nepal, Rabindra, 2026. "Can climate finance effectively address the welfare losses arising from energy poverty?," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 208(C).
    4. Zou, Ran & Yang, Jun & Feng, Chao, 2023. "Does informatization alleviate energy poverty? A global perspective," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 126(C).
    5. Struga, Meivis & Polinesi, Gloria & Rossi, Mosè & Carfora, Alfonso & Comodi, Gabriele & Marko, Oltion, 2025. "Measuring energy poverty in rural Albania: A multidimensional and context-sensitive approach," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 206(C).
    6. Yang, Xiaoyu & Gao, Yuan & Paavo, Pelkonen & Qu, Mei, 2025. "Digital “push and pull”: Mechanisms of rural energy poverty alleviation in China's rural areas," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 316(C).
    7. Jayasinghe, Maneka & Best, Rohan & Selvanathan, E.A. & Selvanathan, Saroja, 2025. "Towards a just transition: Unpacking the gender differences in household cleaner energy use," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 144(C).
    8. Salman, Muhammad & Wang, Guimei, 2024. "Rural energy poverty alleviation in OECD nations: An integrated analysis of renewable energy, green taxation, and the United Nations agenda 2030," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 237(PD).
    9. Siyou Xia & Yu Yang & Xiaoying Qian & Xin Xu, 2022. "Spatiotemporal Interaction and Socioeconomic Determinants of Rural Energy Poverty in China," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(17), pages 1-15, August.
    10. Gawusu, Sidique, 2024. "Evolving energy landscapes: A computational analysis of the determinants of energy poverty," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 202(C).
    11. Ma, Ye & Wan, Shenwei & Zhou, Yang, 2025. "Bridging energy gaps in urbanizing economies: Evidence from China's new energy demonstration city policy on multidimensional energy poverty," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 149(C).
    12. Koomson, Isaac & Churchill, Sefa Awaworyi & Smyth, Russell, 2025. "Financial literacy and clean energy adoption in South Africa," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 151(C).
    13. Xu, Xiao-Yu & Peng, Jia-Hui & Wang, Ke-Liang & Zhang, Zhen-Hua, 2025. "Is energy aid a panacea for energy poverty? Evidence from developing countries," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 206(C).
    14. Liang, Yinhe & Liu, Xi & Yu, Sitian, 2025. "Education and energy poverty: Evidence from China's compulsory education law," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 314(C).
    15. Moteng, Ghislain & Raghutla, Chandrashekar & Njangang, Henri & Nembot, Luc Ndeffo, 2023. "International sanctions and energy poverty in target developing countries," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 179(C).
    16. Kouandou, Arouna, 2025. "The role of remittances in clean energy adoption: New household level insights from West Africa," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 202(C).
    17. Zhao, Congyu & Dong, Kangyin & Jiang, Hong-Dian & Wang, Kun & Dong, Xiucheng, 2023. "How does energy poverty eradication realize the path to carbon unlocking? The case of China," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 121(C).
    18. Gu, Jiafeng, 2023. "Energy poverty and government subsidies in China," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 180(C).
    19. Salman, Muhammad & Zha, Donglan & Wang, Guimei, 2022. "Assessment of energy poverty convergence: A global analysis," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 255(C).
    20. Ren, Weihang & Guan, Yongpei & Qiu, Feng & Levin, Todd & Heleno, Miguel, 2025. "Energy justice and equity: A Review of definitions, measures, and practice in policy, planning, and operations," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 222(C).

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:210:y:2026:i:c:s0301421525005087. 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.