Abstract
Since 1995, the residential sector has been a fast-growing energy consumption sector in Thailand. This sector contributes dramatically to the growth of Thailand’s electricity and oil demand. Our study analysed Thailand’s residential energy consumption characteristics and the seven underlying factors affecting the growth in energy use of five demographic regions using an energy input–output method. Embodied energy decomposition revealed that direct energy consumption accounted for approximately 30% of total residential energy use, whereas indirect energy consumption was at 70%. During the studied period, the growth in indirect energy use for all household groups was primarily the result of higher consumption of ‘commerce’, ‘air transport’, ‘manufacturing’, ‘food and beverages’ and ‘agriculture’ products. Moreover, each influencing driver contributes differently to each household’s growth in energy demand. The number of households was the leading factor that dominated the increases in residential energy use in the Greater Bangkok and Central regions. Growth in residential energy consumption in the Northern, Northeastern and Southern regions was strongly dominated by changes in income per capita. Consumption structure and using energy-efficient products had a moderate impact on all regions’ energy consumption. Thus, our findings provide additional energy-saving strategies to restrain further growth in residential energy demand.
Highlights
Energy consumption in Thailand’s residential sector grew steadily from 1995 to 2015 and accounted for approximately 15% of the country’s energy consumption
Energy policies and conservation efforts in the residential sector which restrain the further growth of energy demand in Thailand are required
Finding the underlying factors of household energy consumption growth that are unique to each country will assist policymakers in identifying challenges and opportunities to properly design effective residential energy conservation policies, e.g., in China [8,9,10], Italy [11] and The Netherlands [12]
Summary
Energy consumption in Thailand’s residential sector grew steadily from 1995 to 2015 and accounted for approximately 15% of the country’s energy consumption. Finding the underlying factors of household energy consumption growth that are unique to each country will assist policymakers in identifying challenges and opportunities to properly design effective residential energy conservation policies, e.g., in China [8,9,10], Italy [11] and The Netherlands [12]. The studies that focused on finding the underlying factors of the increases in Thailand’s household energy consumption rarely found anything interesting, at the regional level. The magnitude of the effects of seven influencing factors on changes in regional energy demand were quantified, including energy efficiency, production technology advancement, household consumption structure, residential expenditure shares on income, income level per household, household size and number of households.
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