Analysis of Energy Poverty in 7 Latin American Countries Using Multidimensional Energy Poverty Index

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The subject addressed in this article is worthy of investigation. It is an interesting piece to identify the population living in energy poverty and measure the intensity of lack of access to energy services that is facing. The complexity of the study of poverty and lack of homogeneous sources to compare force further research to achieve a global vision of the phenomenon of energy poverty. That is why this attempt is well received and brings innovation and contribution to the analysed field. In my view, the article can suggestive novel additions, it could be a good fit for Energies and the methodological proposal is correct. It is a well written and structured article that I have read with interest.

However, its review generates me doubts about the comparability of the sources both for the origin of the data and for the dates on which the data were obtained. I consider that databases used (ENIGH, DHS and HDI) must be presented in a more informed way. Also, authors should be more critical on their findings in a section of conclusions that I missed. Conclusions must be supported by the results.  

Specific comments:

1. (second paragraph, lines 33.37) I would appreciate the reference to global strategic frameworks such as UN 2030 Agenda or Paris Agreement.
2. lines 89-90, typographical errors.
3. Authors says: “A scientometric study was performed to know the most important papers published in the Web of Science in this topic… such as the Science Citation Index (SCI)", not SSCI?
4. The scientometric study is very interesting but if this article shows it, you must complete it and present the data in an attractive way. I suggest that the information be completed with several figures in this regard and an appendix that includes a table with the main articles, countries, universities, and other variables relevant to the searches performed. That would greatly improve the data presentation. I would also delete for example the paragraph concerning universities, why is it a relevant information? Is it a more relevant data than the geographical distribution of scientific production? The latter does seem really important to me and it would not be bad to link it to the HDI that the author has barely used despite being a central element in the paper's approach.
5. “The variables and the weights considered on the methodology had to be adjusted for Colombia, Honduras and Dominican Republic”. Please specify how.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Kind Regards.

Oscar.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

In the article, the authors raise an important problem, which is the energy poverty in Latin American countries, which certainly affects many people - not as the Authors state in Abstract only „several people” (line 10). They formulate the goal as seeking “to contribute to generate information regarding the actual state of energy poverty by conducting an evaluation in Latin America” (lines 76-77). They realize this aim by using Multidimensional Energy Poverty Index and data from two sources – ENIGH database and DHS Program. The concept itself is good and the article is edited correctly in terms of structure. However, from the point of view of the scientific study quality requirements, some questions and doubts arise.

The introduction to the article, apart from such issues as: the context and the importance of the discussed problem raised and the subject of the research, should include the formulation of research hypotheses, as well as a preliminary indication of the originality of solutions against the background of similar research. This is missing in the article submitted for review. Admittedly, the authors carry out a literature review in the next section – but this review does not lead to an answer to the important question in the context of the title of the article: why they chose the MEPI methodology to measure the state of energy poverty. The justification presented is not convincing and unscientific in my opinion. It should be demonstrated against the other methodologies that this indicator is particularly useful in studies conducted for Latin America. A synthetic review of the methods of Measurement of Energy Poverty presents an article that has a very similar topic and purpose (which the authors do not refer to, but they should): Quishpe Sinailin Pablo,Taltavull de La Paz Paloma, and Juárez Tárraga Francisco (2019) Energy Poverty in Ecuador, Sustainability 11(22), 6320; https://doi.org/10.3390/su11226320.

It would be worth discussing the research procedure at the beginning of the Materials and methods section, because further discussion in some fragments is not communicative, e.g. the reader going to the Results section does not know about the results for which country the authors write in the first sentences.

In my opinion, the research conducted by the authors is not innovative or revealing. They simply applied the MEPI methodology directly to investigate the state of energy poverty in several Latin America countries. They did not even try to justify why they take exactly the same weights for the variables for 6 MEPI indicators that Nussbaumer et al. in relation to African countries. Maybe they should be different for Latin America? And even if the same, even simple expert tests should be carried out to confirm this.

I get the impression that the authors' greatest achievement is the effort put into extracting compatible data from two sources (DHS and ENIGH) in terms of using them in the MEPI calculation. It is probably tedious, but not very innovative.

The authors rightly point out that the results they present do not constitute a complete comparison (lines 203-204), because the energy poverty index is calculated for different years for different countries - sometimes the difference reaches 4-5 years (e.g. between data for Honduras and Haiti). The authors say that they present an example model that provides relevant information on the energy poverty situation that some countries are facing - but in that case why these analyzes are shown, since they do not really present the current situation fully and they do not allow comparison between countries? It also seems trivial to indicate a strong relation between the MEPI and the HDI - because it seems obvious that such a relationship exists.

To sum up, given the prestige and reach of the Energies journal, in my opinion, far-reaching corrections and additions are required in order for the article to be published.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Kind regards.

Oscar.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

The article has been improved and my doubts have been satisfactorily explained.

I have doubts about the necessity of giving it the name "A" to the Appendix. This suggests that there should be another Appendix (B, C) - and there is only one.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Kind regards.

Oscar.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx