Energy Vulnerability Beyond the 10% Threshold:

Limitations of Classical Indicators in Low-income Urban Contexts in Latin America

Abstract

This article proposes the construction and application of an Energy Vulnerability (EV) Index for low-income urban neighbourhoods in the city of Salta, Argentina, based on primary data collected through the 2024 Energy Census (n = 345 households). Although the index is grounded in a situated empirical case study, its methodological design seeks to provide an analytical model transferable to low-income urban contexts across Latin America, characterized by shared structural conditions such as housing informality, precarious energy infrastructures, and persistent socioeconomic inequalities.

The EV Index emerged from intensive fieldwork and from the operationalization of empirically observable dimensions identified through the census instrument, with the aim of overcoming the limitations of the classical Energy Poverty indicator based on the 10% electricity expenditure rule. Rather than relying on a strictly monetary approach, the proposed index incorporates dimensions that reflect the effective socio-territorial conditions of households and the ways in which energy is articulated with everyday life. Methodologically, the index integrates three analyticaldimensions—Economic Accessibility, Risk and Infrastructure, and Service Quality and Stability—constructed from weighted and normalized variables on a scale ranging from 0 to 1.

When applied to the surveyed population, the index identifies 41.7% of households as energetically vulnerable, compared to 29.3% classified according to the traditional energy poverty criterion. The findings show that EV captures a broader range of situations of energy deprivation and reflects structural poverty more accurately in low-income urban contexts in Latin America