Digital “push and pull”: Mechanisms of rural energy poverty alleviation in China's rural areas

The development of rural digitalization is the ongoing drive for rural revitalization. The integration of rural digitization with energy transformation is expected to address energy poverty effectively. Using provincial data from 2011 to 2021, this study develops indicators for rural digitization and energy poverty, employing panel fixed effects and other models to investigate how rural digitization can alleviate energy poverty from both supply and demand perspectives.The findings show that rural digitalization significantly reduces energy poverty, as validated by robustness tests. This effect is primarily achieved by improving the quality of farmers’ income, which is more effective in addressing energy poverty than merely increasing income quantity. Urban unemployment moderates this relationship, weakening the positive impact of rural digitalization on income quality, but enhancing its role in alleviating energy poverty. Moreover, rural human capital demonstrates a threshold effect, shaping the extent of poverty reduction. Regional differences are also notable, with non-coal areas and the Yellow River Basin showing more pronounced benefits of rural digitalization. These findings highlight the need to enhance income quality and tailor digitalization strategies to regional characteristics, thereby fostering sustainable rural development and addressing energy poverty more effectively.