Relationship Between the Energy Consumption for Urban Residential Buildings and Residents’ Living Standards—A Case Study of the Four Municipalities in China

Abstract

The living standards particularly in urban areas in China have been improving over last few decades and will continue to grow. This development will affect the amount of energy consumption on urban residential buildings. This paper presents the findings about the effects of improving living standards on the energy consumption for urban residential buildings. Data used for the analysis in this study are collected from official statistics. Research results show that the energy consumption of urban residential buildings are associated closely with the living standards, which are characterized with the parameters such as per capita disposable income and per capita consumer-spending. This demonstrates that analyzing and controlling these two parameters from the perspective of policy and technology has positive effect on reducing energy consumption for residential buildings.