The evolution of energy poverty theory: a scientometrics approach

Energy poverty describes a condition of energy-related social deprivation of households, usually associated to inadequate access to energy services, to dissatisfaction of basic energy needs, or to excessive payment for energy. Despite the research has grown significantly and substantial progress has been made, there is still theoretical divergence, and many decision-makers continue having an antiquated definition of the phenomenon, far away from recent advances. To aid advancing the field towards theoretical consensus and pushing recent research achievements into policy-making, the present paper maps the evolution of energy poverty theory through a scientometrics approach applied to 1025 records of the specialized literature in the period 1978-2020. This approach accounts for and synthesizes the information flows among and within the theoretical and authoring spaces of the field, which allows disclosing major themes and trends. The field shows two independent start points: energy poverty with focus on access and basic needs, and fuel poverty (targeting developing and European countries, respectively). The two conceptions remained mostly separated until 2010. Afterwards, their relationships became closer, hence they started influencing each other. More recently, energy justice has gained relevance in the field, leading to broader insights and serving as a conciliatory perspective. Furthermore, there are several central author clusters, which have dominated over the field, mainly focused on European thought, even though with a broader perspective. The evolution of energy poverty theory shows a convergent trend towards a consensual concept. Yet, the field is far from reaching consensus as many works that explore new paths of theoretical and methodological development are added every year . If the field wants to become more globally pertinent, authors should increase collaboration outside their main clusters, and underrepresented countries should increase their participation. The history of the field has been very exciting so far and it will become even more so.