Gauging energy poverty in developing countries with a composite metric of electricity access

Carlo Drago and Andrea Gatto ()

Utilities Policy, 2023, vol. 81, issue C

Abstract: Energy poverty is a significant development issue that is not univocally interpreted. In many parts of the world, people do not have access to modern and reliable energy, which can be a big problem, particularly for vulnerable and developing countries. When vulnerable people do not have access to energy, they will often not be able to get the power they need to improve their lives. In addition, they may not be able to get proper food, education, health, sanitation, or basic needs for daily living. We use interval-based composite indicators and triplex representations of intervals to measure and assess access to electricity in 54 developing countries as a concept approximating relevant aspects of energy poverty. The proposed composite metric is innovative because it accurately quantifies how much electricity is available to people and how resilient and vulnerable people in developing countries are when they lose access to energy. After comparing the different representations, we found that one group of developing countries is more vulnerable to national and international events than the other. However, other countries are more resilient to electricity access problems. Conflicts and wars can impact the index used to measure energy poverty. However, as measured by the index, these factors contribute to poor performance.

Keywords: Energy poverty; Sustainable development; Developing countries; Vulnerable; Resilience; Composite indicators; Robustness analysis; Interval data; Triplex representation; Interval algebra (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C15 C43 I32 O13 Q01 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:juipol:v:81:y:2023:i:c:s0957178722001503

DOI: 10.1016/j.jup.2022.101486

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