| Author: | Lu, Shengfang |
| Title: | Energy poverty alleviation : models for performance measurement, driving factors analysis and countermeasures identification |
| Advisors: | Ren, Jingzheng (ISE) Lee, Carman (ISE) |
| Degree: | Ph.D. |
| Year: | 2024 |
| Subject: | Energy consumption Energy policy Poor -- Energy assistance Poverty Hong Kong Polytechnic University -- Dissertations |
| Department: | Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering |
| Pages: | xviii, 244 pages : color illustrations |
| Language: | English |
| Abstract: | Alleviating energy poverty (EP) is a political endeavour that forms a crucial part of the Agenda for sustainable development goals (SDGs) because energy access brings diverse advantages concerning human development, health, education, economic growth, environmental sustainability, social equity, etc. However, it is estimated that as of 2023 approximately 745 million individuals still lack electricity access, with over 80% of its population residing in Sub-Saharan Africa. Given the pressing severity of EP and the crucial significance of combating it, there is a need for a comprehensive investigation into its status, causes and potential solutions. Systematic EP measurement is the preliminary step for monitoring the progress of EP to assist in designing policies tailored to specific contexts. The first part of this thesis proposed an integrated performance assessment model based on the integrated fuzzy decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory (DEMATEL) and data envelopment analysis - assurance region (DEA-AR) for evaluating EP condition in Chinese 30 provinces from 2007 to 2017. The proposed model could assign the weight of each indicator within constructed EP measurement system in appropriate size and have stronger discriminatory power in making evaluation. The findings indicate that while the EP situation in China exhibits similarities across most provinces, there is a growing disparity in performance between the best and worst performers. Provinces with stronger economies tend to have better performance and are categorized as progressive group in alleviating EP. Conversely, provinces characterized by weaker economic condition are poorer performers and show regression of alleviating EP. Driving factors of EP are not independent, they interact with each other. However, there has been a lack of systematic research to investigate the importance degree of driving factors predicting EP and their interaction mechanism so far. Here, this study proposed a novel integrated technique composed of the back-propagation neural network (BPNN) and weighted influence non-linear gauge system (WINGS) method to reveal the most important driving factors of EP and their interaction mechanism by using Chinese household-level survey data in 2016, 2018 and 2020. The findings indicate that household income plays a crucial role as the primary driving factor. The education level of household heads and policy support also contribute significantly to EP. Moreover, other factors, like the usage of central heating systems and house ownership, are located downstream of interaction mechanism chain and act as effect-driving factors. The relationship between EP and social factors will vary with time and space. However, limited studies involved spatial characteristics of relationship variations between EP and social factors. Here, this study included 116 global countries as initial research to assess what is the spatial relationship between EP and social factors. The results indicate that EP has synergy relationships with social factors, including life expectancy at birth, access to immunization, CO2 emission, and forest area, and trade-off relationship with social factors, such as infant mortality rate, prevalence of undernourishment, forest rents and gender inequality. High-income countries, particularly those in the Global North, tend to have better energy access and are surrounded by areas with favorable social conditions. Conversely, lower-income countries, especially those in South Africa and Southeast Asia, have lower energy access and are surrounded by areas with more severe social conditions. The improving supply capacity of renewable energy technologies could lower production costs associated with renewable energy and enhance household energy accessibility, which potentially contributes to the alleviation of EP. However, we know little about selecting the suitable renewable energy resource for alleviating EP. Therefore, this thesis lastly developed a novel multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) technique to prioritize renewable energy technology alternatives by not only considering relations between EP alleviation demand and technology selection criteria but also achieving the mutual concession with many contradictory technology selection criteria involved for EP alleviation. The result indicates that the most important EP reduction demand is access to clean fuels and technologies for cooking, and the most significant technological criteria are initial investment and technical maturity. It has also been confirmed that hydropower could be considered a critical renewable energy resource in terms of EP alleviation. This research provides valuable insights into the state-of-art of EP alleviation and analyzes the existing challenges in measuring EP, identifying driving factors of EP and their interactive mechanism, investigating the spatial relationship between EP and social factors, and exploring the potential of selecting renewable energy technology to alleviate EP. To address these issues, an innovative performance measurement model, a novel driving factors identification tool and the integrated MCDM approach have been developed. Additionally, spatial autocorrelation model has also been utilized. The findings imply the significance of improving energy efficiency in high-income households and increasing energy affordability for low-income families, highlight the identification of the critical driving factors to reduce EP and attention paid to vulnerable areas suffering EP and social issues, and emphasize the formulation of sustainable renewable energy policies and energy roadmaps to combat EP. |
| Rights: | All rights reserved |
| Access: | open access |
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