The Structure of Energy Demand and Energy Conservation

Abstract

A major shortcoming of energy planning for the developing coun tries has been the inadequate treatment of the structure of energy demand and how it is likely to change as development proceeds. A realistic assessment of the conservation potential and interfuel substitu tion possibilities in the major end use sectors is therefore difficult. There were two reasons for this past neglect. The first is that until the sharp rises in oil prices, neither conservation nor interfuel sub stitution was a major policy concern for the developing countries. On the contrary, petroleum supplies were cheap and easily available, and the exceptional flexibility of petroleum-based fuels meant that they could be used in a wide variety of functions (raising steam, process heat, cooking, lighting and motive power) in all end use sectors. In these circumstances government policies in most countries, whether implicit or explicit, encouraged the substitution of petroleum for other sources of energy, or at least did not place obstacles in its path. The second reason for the neglect of sectoral energy demand was the lack of basic data on consumption of the various sources of energy in main end use sectors. Typically, energy consumption data for develop ing countries were limited to total primary consumption by types of fuel (coal, oil, gas, primary electricity). They stopped short of the distribu tion of these fuels to energy transformation, household, industrial, or transport uses.