QoL Modeling Against Energy Consumption Per Capita

Abstract

The previous chapter made a brief explanation about energy production and consumption, human development, QoL and its interaction with human energy needs. The capability approach was introduced as an approach to use in this study to construct QoL indicator. Moreover, a review was carried out for previous researches regarding energy and QoL, then emphasized the contribution of this study. This chapter provides a foundation for the rest of chapters through introducing mathematical principles to construct a proposed QoL indicator. The proposed QoL indicator data are modeled against total primary energy supply (TPES) data, to illustrate how QoL changes with variation of the TPES. The results are compared with similar researches in which variation of Human Development Index (HDI) and TPES have been addressed. Some scholars have addressed the relationship between the HDI and energy consumption in terms of the semi-logarithmic or hyperbolic function. One of the results from this relationship is to divide the world countries into two categories, developed and developing countries. According to this classification, pre-developing and developing countries are located into one category (developing), while the proportion of people with fundamental energy needs in the former is far higher than in the latter. The objective of this chapter is to allocate a separate class for pre-developing countries which their fundamental energy needs have not completely satisfied. The methodology section in this chapter is divided into two parts. Initially, based on the longitudinal data (112 country’s data during the period of 2005–2013), a linear QoL indicator is proposed in terms of six variables. Then an S-shape (sigmoid) curve is fitted to the QoL indicator data against TPES per capita (or Energy consumption per capita, ECpc) and electricity consumption per capita (Elcpc) data. Three types of countries, developed, developing, and pre-developing are identified based on the sigmoid function. The results of the proposed model demonstrate that the “pre-developing” category has different QoL and ECpc as compared to developing and developed classes that demands different energy policy in global energy strategy establishment. Another result of this chapter is that the entry of new technologies has influenced the QoL and Elcpc to a greater extent in developing countries than in developed countries. One-way analysis of variance is a method to shed light on the latter consequence. In the case of pre-developing countries, the pertinent analysis shows an insignificant impact. This chapter concludes the new classification of countries appropriately addresses variation of QoL against ECpc in each class.