Energy poverty (development policy)

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Energy poverty is used as a term for the scarcity of energy resources for generating electricity , heating , cooling, etc. Above all, energy poverty denotes no or only limited access to these resources.

Developing countries

The term is used in connection with the population in developing countries to describe the lack of the necessary infrastructure , connection to the transmission network and the lack of production capacity.

Current status

Energy poverty is an acute problem. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), 1.4 billion people currently have no access to electrical energy; 2.7 billion people rely on traditional biomass for their energy requirements for cooking - the direct combustion of wood, charcoal or dried dung. According to the World Health Organization, the fumes from incomplete combustion are the cause of 1.4 million deaths each year, or almost 4,000 per day.

The traditional cuisine of Zambia

At the Millennium Summit 10, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said: "Universal access to energy is a major priority for the global development agenda. It is the foundation of all Millennium Development Goals." Nevertheless, the topic of energy, which focuses on the poorest, plays a special role neither under the Millennium Development Goals nor within the framework of the European Development Fund (EDF), from which the development of European Union projects is financed.

A very significant proportion of people without access to electricity, around 85%, live in rural areas in developing countries. Energy alone is not enough to eradicate poverty, but it can play an important role in the following Millennium Development Goals:

  • MDG 1 - Reducing hunger through refrigerated food storage and improving access to drinking water through electric pumps
  • MDG 2 - Improving educational standards thanks to lighting and communication technologies
  • MDG 3 - Empower women by reducing the work required to get fuel and water
  • MDGs 4,5 and 6 - Reduce child and maternal mortality and fight infections and epidemics through storage of medicines, vaccines and serums and access to modern medical equipment
  • MDG 8 - the use of ecologically sustainable technology for access to electricity as a contribution to the global sustainability of living space.

Fundamental problems of electrification

With regard to access to energy, a specific characteristic of most developing countries is the character of the settlements. Sparsely populated countries in Sub-Saharan Africa have an average density of one-twentieth the average world population density. This fact forms an important factor in the energy concept. In sparsely populated countries there are only very limited options for expanding an energy infrastructure as we know it in industrialized countries. High construction and maintenance costs of the extensive electrical networks with high transmission losses (in some countries south of the Sahara even over 30%) predisposed the majority of the sparsely populated areas in the developing countries to decentralized solutions through local networks or energetically independent housing.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ ENERGY POVERTY. How to make modern energy access universal? (PDF; 2.2 MB)
  2. ↑ Milan Smrž, Obnovitelné energie v rozvojovém světě; Publikováno: T.Tožička a kol, Občanská odpovědnost ve světle globální chudoby, Educon, 2011, ISBN 978-80-260-0352-6
  3. ↑ Renewable Energy in Africa: Prospects and Limits Renewable Energy in Africa: Prospects and Limits - RENEWABLE ENERGY DEVELOPMENT ( Memento of March 18, 2004 in the Internet Archive )