Energy poverty
Topic: Environment and Sustainable Development · NCERT: Beyond NCERT
Meaning
Energy poverty means a household cannot get affordable, reliable electricity or clean cooking fuel. Such families depend on wood, dung cakes or kerosene. This harms their health through indoor smoke, costs women and children time spent gathering fuel, and limits study and work after dark. Sustainable Development Goal 7 aims to end it.
Example
India's Saubhagya scheme (2017) worked to connect every household to electricity. On cooking, NFHS-5 (2019-21) found that only about 59% of households used clean cooking fuel. The rest still cooked with polluting fuels, which is a clear sign of energy poverty.
Don't confuse with
- Income poverty: a shortage of money to meet basic needs. A household can be above the income poverty line and still suffer energy poverty if there is no reliable grid supply or LPG where it lives.
Related concepts
- Non-conventional sources of energy
- Wind power
- Solar photovoltaic power
- Mini-hydel plants
- LPG as clean fuel
- Biogas
- Compressed Natural Gas
- Road space rationing