Reflections from quantitative characterisations of energy poverty in Mexico: Methods, energy justice, and geographic differences

Understanding and remediating socio-economic inequalities arising from unequal access to energy services calls for examining modern energy systems through socio-technical approaches grounded in justice theories. Therefore, this chapter builds on the results of a quantitative characterisation of Energy Poverty (EP) in Mexico that illustrate how, according to official data from 2014, around 61% of Mexican households suffered EP due to a lack of accessibility or affordability of modern energy services (with 11.54% of households facing both simultaneously). The chapter builds on these quantitative results, contributing to three main discussions related to (i) alternative methods to measure and understand EP, calling for the use of qualitative and mixed methods to effectively identify the most vulnerable households, and explore instances of “hidden EP”. (ii) Differences in EP lived experiences between the Global North and Global South and exploring intranational differences between groups with different incomes, urbanisation rates, or climatic regions. (iii) Explore the tensions between conceptualisations of EP in Mexico and discussions around conceptual frameworks for Energy Justice (EJ). Within this context, our chapter provides novel methodological, empirical, and theoretical insights and contributions. By doing so, the chapter advances the understanding of EP in the case of Mexico, a Global South country frequently overlooked by EP academic literature.