Drivers of household transition to clean energy fuels: A systematic review of evidence

Abstract

Consumption of solid fuels (such as biomass, dung, and coal) causes household air pollution, which reportedly is responsible for over 3.5 million premature deaths worldwide. Therefore, over the last couple of years, national governments, and organization as well as international organizations are promoting energy transition from these solid fuels to clean and modern fuels in households. This paper aims to provide comprehensive review of the conceptualization and the drivers of the household energy transition to clean fuels. A systematic literature review approach was identified and used to systematically identify, select, evaluate, and synthesize the relevant published and gray literature appropriate to answer the research question of the study. It is found that the majority (78.4%) of studies conceptualized household energy transition as a switch/shift from one energy fuel to another, while few studies conceptualized energy transition as a change in energy conversion technologies (11.8%) and change in energy use patterns (9.8%). Furthermore, this study found that majority of the studies identified socioeconomic and market/economic factors as key determinants of household energy transition with few studies reported environmental factors, behavioral and government/structural factors as drivers for household energy transition.