Household energy consumption in Switzerland

Abstract

Households consume more energy embodied in goods and services than they consume with energy carriers. Thus, energy assessments need to address both direct consumption and indirect consumption via commodities. This paper first presents a conceptual framework for describing and analysing the direct and indirect energy use of households. The framework is based on material flux analysis and differentiates between four household activities: feeding, housi ng, transporting and consuming. Secondly, Swiss data on household energy consumption are presented and discussed in the context of household size, technology and consumption behaviour. It is shown that these factors considerably shape per capita energy demand. The third part presents energy projections based on trend assumptions for demographic and technological developments for the next 30 years. When zero growth per capita in commodities consumption is assumed, overall energy demand will increase by about 5%, mainly due to strong increases in gasoline demand. When the growth rate of commodities consumption exceeds 0.3% per year, embodied energy demand will offset efficiency gains achieved by technological improvements in the economic and domestic sectors and will fuel overall energy growth.

The rebound effect through industrial ecology’s eyes: a review of LCA-based studies

“…Taking advantage of the emergence of LCA data during the late 1990s (Ybema and Kram 1997), the inclusion of LCA data into this model permitted "to include materials and product substitutions, alternative waste management options, recycling and re-use to be assessed in direct relation with energy production and use" (Ybema and Kram 1997:18). Another inceptive study was that of Durrenberger et al (2001), which investigated the impact of the rebound effect due to commodity consumption growth in terms of embodied energy (based on LCA data) in household energy consumption in Switzerland, concluding that the rebound effect started to be observed when the annual growth of per capita consumption was projected to increase by 0.3 % as a result of energy efficiency increases. However, the definition of the rebound effect in this study was somewhat vague in the sense that it is not clear which type of effects were actually assessed.…”

“…We thus argue that embodied-type effects have no conceptual basis to be regarded as a rebound effect. This conflicting viewpoint emerged already in the first LCA-based environmental rebound effect assessments, which used embodied energy as an indicator (Durrenberger et al 2001).…”

Obstacles and opportunities for reducing dwelling size to shrink the environmental footprint of housing: tenants’ residential preferences and housing choice

“…Furthermore, aside from the size of a dwelling unit, the number of occupants of the unit is also crucial. The per capita consumption of space and energy in housing usually decreases with increasing household size as space, infrastructure, goods and services are shared among more people (Dürrenberger et al, 2001 ; FSO, 2019a ; Underwood & Zahran, 2015 ; c.f. Table 2 ).…”

“…Depending on the type of dwelling, its energy standard and its construction materials, the relevance of dwelling size in its overall environmental impact varies. To further reduce the environmental footprint of housing, other aspects such as occupant behaviour, mobility, energy efficiency or the decarbonisation of heating systems should be taken into account (Dürrenberger et al, 2001;Guerra Santin et al, 2009;Perkins et al, 2009;Randolph, 2008;Saner et al, 2013). Furthermore, aside from the size of a dwelling unit, the number of occupants of the unit is also crucial.…”

Three essays on Swiss household energy demand

“…Despite the fact that the efficiency program energieschweiz.ch and the well-know Pusch foundation (Pusch, 2021) discuss various energy labels, these concern direct energy use. 3 The energy embodied in goods and services exceeds the energy directly used from electricity and other fuels by about 50% (among others, Bin & Dowlatabadi, 2005;Lenzen et al, 2006;Dürrenberger et al, 2001;Girod & De Haan, 2010).…”