Bibliometric literature analysis of a multi-dimensional sustainable development issue: Energy poverty

Abstract

Energy plays a critical role in building a sustainable future—economically, socially, and environmentally. Energy poverty holds a similarly prominent position and covers certain economic, social and environmental issues that are underlined by the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. Due to its multidimensional role in plans for achieving sustainable development, there is a growing body of literature focusing on various aspects of energy poverty. This study conducts a bibliometric analysis of this literature by utilizing more extensive data from the Web of Science, covering all information on energy poverty studies. The analysis reveals how energy poverty has attracted attention over time, who the leading authors are, which studies constitute outstanding contributions to the literature, which different sides of the research topic stand out, and also highlights the potential research gaps. The results reveal all the network flows among researchers, publications, journals, keywords, organizations, co-cited publications, and bibliographic coupling for energy poverty studies. The findings confirm the increasing popularity of energy poverty as a topic and demonstrate the increasing awareness of the issue in academia over time.