Living with energy poverty: Uncovering older people’s fuel choices in urban China

Abstract

Cities are front-runners and essential actors in the household energy transition from traditional solid to modern non-solid fuels. However, achieving an equitable and just transition in cities presents challenges, particularly for vulnerable populations. Among these vulnerable groups, older people are particularly affected by energy poverty, facing inadequate access to clean and modern energy. Yet, the linkages between their energy poverty and fuel choices remain underexplored, especially in urban areas outside the Global North context. This study focuses on China, a fastest-aging country, and aims to understand why some older people in affluent urban areas continue to burn honeycomb coal briquettes. By analyzing older people’s subjective experiences and objective connections to their fuel use, we uncover their lived experiences with energy poverty. We extended the ‘Energy Cultures Framework’ by including older people's vulnerability attributes alongside their material culture, norms, practices, and external influences. Using semi-structured interviews and participant observations in urban Wuhan, we found two patterns of dirty fuel stacking among older people facing energy poverty: passive and active dirty stacking. Passive dirty stacking is mainly caused by older energy-poor individuals' material culture, external influences, and vulnerability attributes; whereas active dirty stacking is primarily associated with their norms, practices, vulnerability attributes, and related external factors. Our findings provide strong implications for social and energy policy, particularly regarding the characterization of energy poverty, regulatory and infrastructural responses, social justice, grassroots governance, energy literacy, and cultural compatibility.