Energy Poverty in Japan: Current Trends and Future Challenges

Abstract

Despite being one of the world’s largest economies, Japan is still behind European countries on energy poverty recognition. There are several scholars who have been investigating the issues of energy poverty in Japan, but those results have not been considered seriously by the public yet, leading energy poverty to not being recognized as a social issue. This chapter, through a literature review, aims to delve into some peculiarities of the Japanese context in order to provide a better understanding of how energy poverty should be measured, assessed, and conceptualized in this country. For this purpose, this chapter aims at providing a comprehensive overview of the main challenges faced currently by the country, how they could be addressed by public policy, and how the near future might unfold. Results show that greater efforts are needed to move forward in the definition, measurement, and mitigation of energy poverty. Furthermore, aging population, rural and urban gap, lack of affordable and sustainable energy resources, and poor energy efficiency of existing housing stock have been highlighted as the main challenges that Japan will face in the near future.