Locked In or Bouncing Back? Energy Poverty and the Capability-Deprivation Loop in Rural Northern China During the Energy Transition Era

Energy services are foundational to human flourishing, yet energy poverty persists as a multidimensional constraint on wellbeing. While global research increasingly utilises lived experience to illuminate hardships missed by conventional indicators, studies in China remain largely techno-economic focused. This study addresses this gap by applying the Capability Approach to qualitative data from rural northern China. Through thematic analysis, this research challenges the dominant techno-economic narrative in China and identifies three interrelated dynamics that deepen our understanding of how energy poverty is produced, experienced, and reproduced through its compounding interactions with households’ capabilities. First, energy poverty in rural northern China is seasonally patterned yet temporally divergent, dictated by technological path dependency. The duration and depth of energy poverty are contingent on energy sources. Second, a self-reinforcing energy poverty-capability deprivation (EP-CD) loop emerges conditionally, trapping households reliant on traditional energy whose coping strategies preserve immediate functionings at the expense of broader capabilities. Third, entrenched energy poverty arises from unequal conversion factors, which drive divergent energy poverty trajectories and limit households’ capacity to transform resources into meaningful capabilities. The study concludes by advocating for the enhancement of collective capabilities to address structural injustices and disrupt the EP–CD cycle.