Exploring the role of renewable energy expansion in mitigating energy poverty in China

China has formulated ambitious but costly renewable energy targets for carbon reduction, energy security, and rural revitalization. However, nearly 13.2%-35.3% of Chinese are still suffering from energy-poor. As the transformation of energy structure accelerates, whether the expansion of renewable energy can alleviate energy poverty is rarely discussed. Therefore, this paper collects panel data from 30 provinces and regions in China from 2004 to 2020, and uses the difference-generalized moment method (GMM) to verify the role of renewable energy expansion in alleviating energy poverty. With the objective of rigorously measuring energy poverty, this paper establishes a four-dimensional comprehensive assessment system. Finally, robustness tests and heterogeneity analysis were performed to ensure the reliability of the results. According to the findings, (i) From the full sample data analysis results, the expansion of renewable energy has not significantly promoted the alleviation of energy poverty. (ii) The role of renewable energy expansion in alleviating energy poverty shows considerable variation across regions. In regions with serious energy poverty and large-scale expansion of renewable energy, the development of renewable energy is an effective means to mitigates energy poverty. However, in regions with lower levels of energy poverty and renewable energy expansion, the role of renewable energy expansion is not matter.