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Off-grid Hybrid Energy Systems
Published in Yatish T. Shah, Hybrid Power, 2021
One can broaden this definition beyond households to include any potential consumer, from individuals to large organizations. Most rural societies experience limited access to modern energy services, due to problems of availability and/or affordability. Instead, they rely on traditional fuels—predominately animal dung, crop residues, and wood—for majority of their energy needs [351]. Such “energy poverty” has a serious impact on living standards and productivity. When burned, traditional fuels often produce hazardous chemicals with negative health impacts, especially when used indoors. For example, Ezzati and Kammen [352] provide strong evidence that exposure to indoor air pollution from the combustion of traditional fuels in Kenya enhances the risk of acute respiratory infection. They show that relatively affordable environmental interventions, such as use of an improved stove with traditional fuels, can reduce acute respiratory infection by 25% among infants and young children [345].
Renewable energy enterprises in emerging markets
Published in Cle-Anne Gabriel, Renewable Energy Enterprises in Emerging Markets, 2019
One of the issues faced at the BOP in emerging markets is that of energy poverty (the lack of access to modern energy services). Indeed, energy poverty is experienced by one billion people all over the world who do not have access to energy for the purposes of lighting, heating, powering household devices and as a fuel for cooking and other household uses. Indeed, this urgent issue is one of the most compelling arguments for off-grid solutions in emerging markets. Energy poverty within BOP communities also raises issues of the affordability of RETs (Gabriel, 2022). RET prices can be prohibitive among BOP communities. Therefore, to solve the issues related to affordability for end-users in these communities, REEs often rely on co-designing their business models and adapting their technologies together with BOP communities. In addition, these issues are also addressed by improving the availability and accessibility of various forms of financial assistance for socioeconomically disadvantaged end-users.
Small Wind Turbines: A Technology for Energy Independence and Sustainable Agriculture
Published in Mario Alejandro Rosato, Small Wind Turbines for Electricity and Irrigation, 2018
The European Community has not issued an official position on energy poverty, but a page of its web site contains a study on the topic, available to download (see Bibliography at the end of this chapter). The said document defines energy poverty as: Energy poverty, often defined as a situation where individuals or households are not able to adequately heat or provide other required energy services in their homes at affordable cost.
Measuring the level of energy and health expenditure among energy-poor and non-poor households in india: a disaggregated analysis
Published in Energy Sources, Part B: Economics, Planning, and Policy, 2022
Mohammad A Faizan, Ramna Thakur
Energy poverty is a complex multidimensional phenomenon perceived differently in developing and developed countries. Various studies have measured energy poverty using composite indices to understand the multidimensionality of the same. Energy poverty is widely understood as an inability or lack of access to adequate energy services such as cooking, lighting, heating and use of household appliances (such as refrigerators, fans, washing machines, mobile phones, etc.). The deprivation of basic energy needs and the access to clean and efficient energy for cooking is usually the central point in the global South (Bouzarovski and Petrova 2015). For example: Sadath and Acharya (2017) developed a composite index to measure energy poverty in India using three dimensions as; a household does not have access to LPG and uses a Chula with chimney, has access to electricity, uses firewood, dung cake, crop residue, kerosene and coal/charcoal for lighting, heating or cooking purpose. On the other hand, affordability, where people cannot afford to satisfy their basic energy needs, is the primary focus in the North, i.e. developed countries (Okushima 2017). Sokołowski et al. (2020) measures energy poverty in Poland using five indicators depicting the unaffordability of the households to sustain energy expenses.
Nexus between energy poverty and economic vulnerability: Evidence from low and middle income economies
Published in Energy Sources, Part B: Economics, Planning, and Policy, 2022
Canh Phuc Nguyen, Su Dinh Thanh
The findings have an important policy implication. Eradicating the poverty of energy is only possible if a long-term policy on economic stability in line with the use of renewable energy is in effect. It is not only access to energy that is important, but also efficient energy use, and policy that contributes to economic stability and improving life quality by alleviating energy poverty. This means that the policy to alleviate energy poverty would not only provide benefits in improving livelihood of households, especially rural family, it would but also reduce overall economic vulnerability. As such, countries with the recession due to the Pandemic may consider to include the policy to reduce energy poverty in their economic stimulus packages, especially policies to support for renewable energy development (Bolin, Fang, and Meng 2021, 2021; Dong et al. 2022; Feng 2021). Furthermore, the countries in the process of economic integration should devote much attention and resource to combatting the problem of energy poverty to capitalise on globalisation, from which they derive benefits. In this process, a serious attention to improve the equality in energy use through region-based solution and policy can be considered (e.g., see Pan and Dong (2022)).
Analyzing energy poverty with Fuzzy Cognitive Maps: A step-forward towards a more holistic approach
Published in Energy Sources, Part B: Economics, Planning, and Policy, 2019
Lefkothea Papada, Nikolas Katsoulakos, Ilias Doulos, Dimitris Kaliampakos, Dimitris Damigos
Energy poverty has emerged as one of the vital problems of recent years, with serious socio-economic, environmental, political, and health implications. Regarding the latter and, as closely related to indoor air pollution, energy poverty is connected with several kinds of illnesses, such as circulatory and respiratory problems, mental disabilities, excess winter deaths (BPIE 2014; WHO 2016) and is considered to be responsible for 4.3 million deaths caused by ischemic heart diseases, strokes, acute lower respiratory infections in children and lung cancers (WHO 2016). Less directly, energy poverty can lead to conditions such as poor diet or lower participation in social activities, reducing significantly the quality of life. It has been estimated that between 50 and 125 million people in Europe are energy poor (EPEE 2009), while BPIE (2014) and Pye et al. (2015) report that rates of energy poverty vary considerably across different Member States based on proxy indicators, ranging between 9.7% and 15.11% of the European population. Recent data show that certain southern European countries, although having milder climatic conditions, exceed by far averages of self-reported indicators, such as Bulgaria, with a percentage of households close to 37% unable to keep their home adequately warm (Eurostat 2018a), or Greece, with 38.5% of households in arrears with their utility bills (Eurostat 2018b). A consistent and more accurate estimation of the problem at the European level is not feasible yet, due to the lack of common indicators addressing the problem.