The Relevance of Cooking Fuel in Energy Poverty: The Case of Argentina

Abstract

Worldwide, there is an increasing concern about reducing energy poverty, especially since the promotion of the Sustainable Development Goals in 2015 by the United Nations. In particular, goal 7, “Affordable and clean energy” is the most relevant when discussing energy poverty as it involves ensuring access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all by 2030. Within energy poverty, the particular problem of access to clean cooking has called the attention of many international organizations and policy makers. In this sense, energy poverty cannot be defined solely as the lack of access to energy, since it also relevant attributes such as the quantity and quality of energy. At the same time, the access, quantity and quality of the equipment of a household is relevant, since what really matters to determine the well-being of the households is energy services. However, there are several factors that affect the aforementioned attributes such as socio-economic, geographical, building and cultural factors, which ultimately affect energy services. Therefore, energy poverty is defined as the lack of satisfaction of the energy services essential for human life, induced by a lack of access, quantity and quality not only of energy but of equipment, which is caused by various factors, such as socioeconomic (insufficient level of income, education, etc.), geographical (disconnection to the network), buildings (type of construction, insulation in openings, etc.) and cultural (fees for certain energy sources); which ultimately affects the level of well-being of household. For all this, this document is a first explorative study about energy poverty based on lack of access to clean cooking energy service in Argentina. For this, a brief discussion about the choice of cooking material, the options available in Argentina and the situation in the country is presented.