Drivers of urban and rural residential energy consumption in China from the perspectives of climate and economic effects

Hong-guang Nie, Rene Kemp, Jin-hua Xu, Veronique Vasseur, Ying Fan*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

In this study, we investigate the driving forces behind the changes in residential energy consumption (rec) in china’s urban and rural areas over the 2001–2012 period. Based on the logarithmic mean divisia index method, the rec changes are decomposed into seven driving forces, which are climate change, energy price, energy expenditure mix, energy cost share (in total expenditure), expenditure share (in income), per capita income and population effects. According to the results, climate effect due to increasing days with abnormal temperature, energy cost share effect characterized by more expenditure to be paid for energy use, income effect describing constant income growth in the residential sector definitely increase rec in both urban and rural areas. In contrast, energy prices and energy expenditure mix effects negatively contribute to the rec increase, respectively because of the increase in energy prices and the transition from the low-priced energy to high-priced energy. Expenditure share and population effects play opposite roles in urban and rural areas, and the reasons and implications are analysed in depth.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)2954-2963
JournalJournal of Cleaner Production
Volume172
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 20 Jan 2018

Keywords

  • Residential energy consumption (REC)
  • Index decomposition analysis
  • Urban versus rural areas
  • Climate effect
  • China

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