Template-type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0
Author-Name: Mirza, Bilal
Author-Email: mirza@merit.unu.edu
Author-Workplace-Name: UNU-MERIT
Author-Name: Szirmai, Adam
Author-Email: szirmai@merit.unu.edu
Author-Workplace-Name: UNU-MERIT
Title: Towards a new measurement of energy poverty: A cross-community analysis of rural 
	 Pakistan 
Abstract: Most rural households in Pakistan remain in a state of energy poverty. 
	 They use a variety of non-conventional energy sources, including 
	 traditional biomass (firewood, animal and plant waste), kerosene and 
	 even LPG. A specially designed Energy Poverty Survey (EPS), carried out 
	 in rural Pakistan from December 2008 till January 2009, showed that 
	 rural households use different combinations of energy sources (the 
	 energy mix). This paper analyses the characteristics and consequences of 
	 the different energy mixes, used by richer and poorer rural households. 
	 Using data from the EPS, we develop a composite index to measure the 
	 degree of Energy Poverty among rural households. This index takes into 
	 account the inconvenience for the household associated with the use of 
	 different sources of energy, as well as its energy shortfall and takes 
	 household size into account. In our results, we found that 23.1% of 
	 rural households experience high degrees of energy inconveniences, 
	 spending ample amount of their time and effort in collecting or buying 
	 different energy sources. Next, using the standard conversion units to 
	 convert different energy sources into kilowatt hours, we found that 
	 96.6% rural households experience severe energy shortfalls. Our new and 
	 inclusive measure of energy poverty which combines the energy 
	 inconveniences and the energy shortfalls, reveals that 91.7% of all 
	 rural households in Punjab province of Pakistan are in the state of 
	 severe energy poverty.
Classification-JEL: I32, O13, Q01 
Keywords: energy access, energy poverty measurement, energy indicators, 
	 energy inconvenience index, energy poverty index
Series: UNU-MERIT Working Papers
Creation-Date: 2010
Number: 024
File-URL: http://www.merit.unu.edu/publications/wppdf/2010/wp2010-024.pdf
File-Format: application/pdf
File-Size: 275 Kb
Handle: RePEc:unm:unumer:2010024