Abstract
The electric universal service policy, which has been implemented for many years in China, aims to meet the basic electricity demands of rural residents. Electricity consumption can facilitate the daily life of rural residents, such as lighting and cooking, which are necessary to their well-being. In practice, the well-being of rural residents due to electricity consumption is influenced by many factors. Therefore, to improve the well-being of rural residents, it is quite necessary to identify and optimize the significant factors that make the electric universal service policy play its prescribed role as well as possible. In this paper, the significant factors influencing rural residents’ well-being obtained from electricity consumption were identified and discussed by employing the Ordered Probit model. The results indicate that: (1) there are six significant factors, of which ‘educational level’, ‘health condition’, ‘each person income of a family per month’, and ‘service time of household appliances’ play positive roles in rural residents’ well-being, while ‘average power interruption times’ and ‘monthly electric charges’ have negative impacts; (2) for significant factors with positive roles, ‘educational level’ and ‘health condition’ show larger marginal effects on rural residents’ well-being; and (3) for significant factors with negative impacts, ‘average power interruption times’ has the greatest marginal effect. Finally, policy implications are proposed for improving rural residents’ well-being, which can also contribute to the effective implementation of the electric universal service policy in China.
Highlights
Electric energy plays an important role in contemporary economic, social and human development [1,2]
This reliability analysis result demonstrates the design of the original questionnaire is reasonable, and the survey results obtained from questionnaires are effective and reliable, which can be used for identifying significant factors influencing the well-being of rural residents due to electricity consumption
According to the main conclusions obtained in this paper, to perfect the policy implementation and sustainability related to Electric universal service (EUS), improve the well-being of rural residents due to electricity consumption and promote sustainable development of individuals, several policy implications are proposed as follows: (1) The government should provide related policies to support science and technology skill training for rural residents, to build a platform for information exchange, and to improve the scientific and cultural knowledge levels of rural residents, which can enhance the ability of rural residents to resist uncertain risks and increase income
Summary
Electric energy plays an important role in contemporary economic, social and human development [1,2]. The Chinese government has promulgated several policies and implemented strategic measures related to EUS, such as ‘China’s Energy Policy (2012)’ promulgated by the State Council of China, the ‘Twelfth Five-Year Plan of Energy Development’ made by the State Council of China, and the ‘Three-year action plan for comprehensively solving electric usage problems for rural residents (2013–2015)’ issued by the National Energy Administration. Owing to those related policies and measures, those living in the remote and backward regions, especially rural residents, can access electric energy.
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