The potential alleviation effects of rural rooftop photovoltaic potential on energy poverty: evidence from China

Energy poverty remains a critical global challenge demanding urgent solutions. This study investigates the alleviation effects of rural rooftop photovoltaic potential on energy poverty in China from 2010 to 2022, integrating ArcGIS analysis, panel quantile models, and machine learning techniques. The findings reveal a U-shaped distribution of photovoltaics' poverty-alleviation effects: at the 25 %, 50 %, and 75 % quantiles of energy poverty, a per unit increase in photovoltaic potential reduces energy poverty by 2.3 %, 1.4 %, and 9.1 %, respectively. Notably, regional disparities are pronounced: in Eastern China, photovoltaic deployment consistently mitigates energy poverty across quantiles by 10.7 %, 11.3 %, and 13.9 %, respectively, whereas Western regions experience aggravated energy poverty due to environmental constraints and policy gaps. Further mechanism analysis indicates that photovoltaic adoption initially suppresses rural per capita income by 28 %, 6.9 %, and 13.5 % at each quantile, compelling households to prioritize self-consumption of photovoltaic-generated electricity over costly traditional fuels. Projections based on Long Short-Term Memory models suggest that rural energy poverty disparities will narrow to below 50 % by 2030 under sustained photovoltaic deployment in the six regions. These results underscore the necessity of multi-sector collaboration, infrastructure modernization, and targeted subsidies to optimize photovoltaics’ dual role in advancing sustainable energy transitions and equitable poverty reduction.