Features, Driving Forces and Transition of the Household Energy Consumption in China: A Review

Abstract

Household energy consumption has been a major contributor to the increase in global energy demand and carbon emission, and the household sector has also become one of the most crucial factors shaping the management of developments towards sustainability. However, there is still a knowledge gap regarding the household energy consumption in China. Due to the vast territory and the differences among regional conditions, it is critical to conduct a systemic review to illustrate the overall situation as well as the detailed mechanisms of the household energy consumption in China. By employing both qualitative and quantitative methods, two key features of the household energy consumption in China are presented; one is regarding the total amount and the structure of the household energy consumption, and the second is the significant urban-rural gap. The driving forces are investigated from the perspective of external determinants and internal determinants, which consist of seven key factors; finally, the transition roadmap towards the sustainable energy system for the household level are presented based on the text analysis from the four key policy documents. Weaknesses in the current research on the energy geography of household level also exist, such as the lack of single factor research and the lack of integration and comprehensive analysis. Therefore, future studies need to strengthen the research of regional household energy consumption structure, spatial-temporal process, and its motivation mechanism, and sustainable development of energy, so as to explore space-social structure of household energy consumption and spatial-temporal interaction.

Indoor Temperature Improvement and Energy-Saving Renovations in Rural Houses of China’s Cold Region—A Case Study of Shandong Province

“…By 2030, it is estimated that about 0.5 billion people would live in China's rural areas, and the construction area of rural houses would be about 22 billion m 2 , accounting for 29% of the total construction area in the whole country [3]. A large number of rural houses and unreasonable design and construction modes would lead to the large amount of energy consumption in rural residential buildings [4][5][6][7][8]. According to statistics, the energy consumption per unit area in rural residential houses increased from 60.9 kW•h/m 2 in 2000 to 147.1 kW•h/m 2 in 2017 [9], with an average annual growth rate of about 5.3%.…”

A Study on the Factors Affecting China’s Direct Household Carbon Emission and Comparison of Regional Differences

“…Compared with other countries, China's per capita household carbon emissions are not high [13,14], but in 2012, the percentage of energy consumption caused by household consumption activities of the total consumption in China increased to 24.7% [15], which is a rising trend, especially in rural areas [16]. In China's energy reform objectives, the household sector also plays an increasingly important role [17]. Some studies calculated China's household carbon emissions from different perspectives [6,7,[18][19][20][21], including urban-rural differences and interprovincial differences.…”

“…There are many factors affecting household carbon emissions in China. Feng et al, Wiedenhofer et al, and Shi et al found that income has a large impact on residential carbon emissions [6,17,30]. Zhang et al found a positive correlation between income and household carbon emissions [4].…”

What is Currently Driving the Growth of China’s Household Electricity Consumption? A Clustering and Decomposition Analysis

“…Evidently, if the people in a region disappear, then the household's electricity consumption will not also exist. Furthermore, some studies have recently confirmed that energy consumption presents different patterns because people in rural and urban areas have various living conditions and habits [11,12]. Thus, populations in rural and urban areas are selected as the potential driving factors of China's household electricity consumption growth.…”