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A comprehensive review on energy poverty: definition, measurement, socioeconomic impact and its alleviation for carbon neutrality

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Abstract

Energy poverty is widely recognized as a significant societal and political challenge worldwide, impacting the quality of life for people in both developed and developing countries. This paper begins by providing a comprehensive overview of the definition of energy poverty, categorizing various measurement methods, and highlighting their respective advantages and disadvantages. Subsequently, a bibliometric analysis is conducted, which covers a wide range of energy poverty research sources to reveal the publication numbers, leading authors and countries, and author keywords co-occurrence. After that, based on the bibliometric analysis of author keywords, the impact of energy poverty on socioeconomic issues has been discussed and the corresponding knowledge gaps have been identified. Finally, research regarding low-carbon energy transition and its relationship with energy poverty alleviation and carbon neutrality has been discussed, showing that carbon neutrality goals, especially for increasing the proportion of renewable energy resources, are consistent with the energy poverty alleviation goals.

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Data availability

The data that support the findings of this study are openly available in the Web of Science at https://www.webofscience.com/wos/woscc/basic-search.

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Acknowledgements

The work described in this paper was supported by the grant from the Research Committee of The Hong Kong Polytechnic University under student account code RK3E.

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  1. Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong SAR, China

    Shengfang Lu & Jingzheng Ren

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Lu, S., Ren, J. A comprehensive review on energy poverty: definition, measurement, socioeconomic impact and its alleviation for carbon neutrality. Environ Dev Sustain (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10668-023-04143-7

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