Abstract
Exploring the factors affecting residents’ electricity-saving behavior and their mechanisms of action is an important way to conserve regional energy and reduce emissions. Integrating the theory of planned behavior (TPB) and norm activation model (NAM) and introducing the external policy factors, a model of the factors influencing habituation and investment electricity-saving behavior was constructed and an empirical study of urban residents in Hefei city, China was conducted. The results show that residents’ knowledge of the electricity price policy indirectly affects their habitual intentions by affecting their attitudes whereas residents’ knowledge of the subsidy policy have direct effects on their investment intentions. Environmental concern can directly affect residents’ habituation and investment intentions and also indirectly affect their habituation ones by affecting their personal moral norm. However, its indirect effect on the investment intention is not significant. Perceived behavioral control has a significant positive impact on residents’ investment intentions and behaviors, but the impacts on their habituation ones are not significant. The relationships between the personal moral norm and the two kinds of intention and behavior are opposite to those of perceived behavior control. Relevant policy implications for the government, household appliance enterprises, and power enterprises are provided.
Highlights
Burning fossil fuels produces large amounts of greenhouse gases
According to the “Global Energy and CO2 Status Report 2018” released by the International Energy Agency (IEA), energy-related CO2 emissions rose by 1.7% in 2018, and they reached the highest level in history of 33.1 Gt CO2
Construct validity refers to the confidence level that the sample measurements can represent the overall true score [2]
Summary
According to the “Global Energy and CO2 Status Report 2018” released by the International Energy Agency (IEA), energy-related CO2 emissions rose by 1.7% in 2018, and they reached the highest level in history of 33.1 Gt CO2. The power generation sector, which accounts for 38% of the total energy-related emissions, remains the highest emitter. The “Electricity Information Overview 2018” shows that in 2017, the electricity consumption of the global residential sector accounted for 27% of the total energy-related emissions. This consumption grew from 145.195 billion kWh in 2000 to 1025 billion kWh in 2019. This represents an average annual growth rate of 10.95%, which is higher than the growth rate of total electricity consumption (9.32%) and the growth rate of the industrial sector in the same period (8.77%). In 2019, household electricity consumption accounted for 14% of Sustainability 2020, 12, 4815; doi:10.3390/su12124815 www.mdpi.com/journal/sustainability
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