Domestic Energy Use Research Articles

Embodied Energy in Export Flows Along Global Value Chain: A Case Study of China’s Export Trade

Energy issues are closely related to the development of human society and economy. Embodied energy is the total direct and indirect energy consumption required for the production of goods and services. In the context of the intensifying development of economic globalization and prosperity of international trade, embodied energy is considered as a better indicator to comprehensively reflect the nature of a country’s energy use than the direct energy use. The development of trade in value added (TiVA) accounting and global value chain theory has brought new ideas to embodied energy research. This study applies TiVA accounting to the study of embodied energy and establishes a complete framework to decompose the sources, destinations, and transfer routes of embodied energy in a country’s exports, and comprehensively depicts the embodied energy flows in China’s exports at the country and sector levels as an instance. The results show that China exports large amounts of embodied domestic energy use, and export is an important factor for the rapid growth of China’s energy and emissions. At the country level, the United States and EU28 are traditional major importers of China, and developing countries, such as Brazil, India, and Indonesia, are emerging markets. China’s embodied energy flows to different importers vary in terms of trade patterns, flow routes, and the embodied domestic energy intensities. At the sector level, the light industry and the services create more benefits, whereas manufacturing, such as chemicals and metal products, consumes more energy, and there is a mismatch between the main sectors that create economic benefits from exports and the main sectors that consume energy for exports. These results indicate that embodied energy of China’s exports has a great impact on global energy consumption and carbon emission, and the optimizing of China’s export embodied energy structure is conducive to global energy conservation and emission reduction. This article strongly suggests the importance of the global value chain decomposition framework in embodied energy research.

The effects of FDI and government expenditures on environmental pollution in Korea: the pollution haven hypothesis revisited.

This paper uses the pollution haven hypothesis (PHH) to examine the effects of foreign direct investment (FDI) and government expenditures on environmental quality in Korea. For this purpose, we conducted autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) bounds testing for the period 1970-2018. Empirical results indicate that in Korea, increased FDI, per capita gross domestic product (GDP), energy use, and imports have led to increased per capita carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, while government expenditures, renewable energy, and exports have led to decreased per capita CO2 emissions. Empirical results also reveal an N-shaped relationship between per capita GDP and per capita CO2 emissions. Moreover, the PHH is valid in Korea to a moderate degree, and the detrimental effect of FDI on environmental quality is relatively limited. Furthermore, government expenditures improve environmental quality. These empirical findings support Korea's leading role in implementing comprehensive green growth initiatives.

Increase in household energy consumption due to ambient air pollution

In response to acute environmental stresses such as air pollution, households may resort to quick and convenient adaptation measures that increase energy use, amplifying the environmental impact and requiring additional adaptation. This cycle of energy-intensive adaptation has so far received little consideration by the broader energy community. Here, we analyse the response of Korean households to PM2.5 (ultrafine dust), based on real-time hourly smart meter data. We show that a 75 μg m–3 increase in PM2.5 concentration led to an 11.2% increase in electricity consumption, equivalent to the impact of a 3.5 °C increase in the average summer temperature. The magnitude of the energy-intensive adaptation correlated with households’ lifestyles and was higher on weekends and during daytime hours on both weekdays and weekends. The responses also reflected seasonal differences and had a U-shape relationship with temperature. We illustrate the importance of integrating the broader impacts of air pollution into policymaking to strike a proper balance between its mitigation and adaptation. The impact of energy consumption on air pollution in various forms has been studied extensively though less is known about how ambient air pollution affects energy use. Here, Eom et al. show how ambient air pollution increases domestic energy use in South Korea.

The politics of domestic energy vulnerability in the Barcelona region, between deconfinement and reconfinement

This paper studies the diverse actions, interventions and strategies initiated to address rising energy vulnerability among low-income households in the Barcelona region over the last decade. Drawing upon recent conceptual work around the politics of energy and in-depth fieldwork conducted over more than two years, we trace the different processes and sites through which the basic socio-material conditions of domestic access to energy have become politicised. We show how this involves a two-stage movement of deconfinement and reconfinement. In a context marked by austerity, an energy inefficient urban fabric and a centralised and oligopolistic energy system, energy vulnerability emerged from the domestic and private sphere to become framed as a public problem through parliamentary debate, social protest and local authority initiatives. Yet, energy access and vulnerability have also to some extent been recontained in the space of the household through the focus of recent local policy intervention on ‘low cost’ measurement, audit and equipment of domestic energy use. We argue that in reprivatizing what had become a public issue and thus redistributing responsibility for change to the household level, authorities and practitioners continue to ignore the systemic factors behind energy vulnerability situations and reproduce a status quo that benefits only energy utilities. The contribution of the paper is thus to show a politics of energy access that is increasingly constituted through entangled, fluid, blurred forms of relations between domestic and collective issues. This politics allows, for example, the need for systemic change to be framed as ostensibly a concern of households and to be met through fragmented, low-cost, metrological measures at that level.

A General Cross-Country Panel Analysis for the Effects of Capitals and Energy, on Economic Growth and Carbon Dioxide Emissions

To clarify the effects of generalized capitals and energy footprint on aggregate incomes and total carbon dioxide emissions, a cross-country panel analysis is applied in the present study. The generalized capitals included in this study are human capital, manufacture capital, natural capitals (as rents of fossil fuels, forest, and minerals). The energy footprint is represented by the primary energy consumption to index the overall domestic energy use. A Cobb–Douglas production function is used to empirically study on a panel of 21 European Union countries. Annual data of rents of natural capitals are used to represent the economic value of natural capitals that flows to the economy. The following are the main findings of this study: (1) Employing human and manufactural capital makes contributions to income growth and carbon reduction. This study’s evidence guides to clarify the misunderstanding of capital and capitalism. Innovations through well-developed and well-managed human and manufactured capital can help sustain income and reduce carbon dioxide emissions. (2) Energy footprint is the vital determinant to total carbon dioxide emissions and hence the most important part of climate policy. (3) The value currently commeasured by monetary terms and compiled by the World Bank is evidenced, not persistently contributed to the income, rather contributed to total carbon dioxide emissions, for the sake of the energy-intensive attributes in the resource-extracting industry. The natural capitals represented by the rent of extracting endowed natural resources can only represent part of the value of natural capitals to human beings. The virtue values of natural capitals in terms of amenity and life supporting are inevitable, but intangible and hence incommensurable. This value is still ignored and unable to enter the contemporary gate of monetary national accounting system.

Films as source of everyday life and energy use: A case of Indian cinema

Drawing from film studies, this paper introduces a new, experimental method to understand domestic practices and energy use in the home. The paper adopts the methodology of the AHRC CineMuseSpace project and applies it in the context of energy studies. A detailed keyword ontology was developed in order to identify practices, technologies and energy use at home. 19 Indian films, based in chawl housing in Mumbai, were analysed. The keyword ontology was then applied to the film fragments extracted in a database. This allowed us to map the presence and use of domestic technologies in film, and where and how everyday practices were performed. The analysis was followed by site observations, and re-watching the films, building on the embodied knowledge from site. We believe there are three points to demonstrate the usefulness of this method. First, it gave us an understanding of actual behavior in homes revealed by films across the time period of four decades. Second, Indian cinema offered a vast library of demonstrations of the architecture and life of chawls in use. Third, movies are not produced in a social vacuum and reflect the values of the social milieu in which they are made, revealing social structures at home. The novelty of the research lies in its methodological approach to using film data as a reflective tool to understand everyday life and energy use at home, highlighting the importance of arts and humanities research in mediating often highly technical approach of energy studies.

Appliance use behavior modelling and evaluation in residential buildings: A case study of television energy use

Aside from the consumption for domestic cooling and heating, the energy consumption of appliances in a household is a large amount. This energy use by appliances is highly dependent on the activities of the occupants in a building. Occupant behavior in residential buildings possesses the characteristic of randomness, variety, and complexity. More specifically, the profiles of energy consumption and appliance use are highly dependent on the timing of residents’ activities. Thus, it is necessary to model the domestic energy use profile with high temporal resolution. For example, in the context of energy demand response analysis, it is crucial to take occupant behavior into consideration. This article presents a thorough and detailed method for generating an appliance use pattern based on measured power data in real households, taking the television as a case study. The study develops a stochastic model based on appliance use data at one-minute temporal resolution. The proposed model firstly extracts feature parameters to depict the use behavior of the appliance. Then, one stochastic simulation model is established with the input of feature parameters. An evaluation method for this appliance behavior model is also proposed. As a result of one case study simulating appliance consumption at a variety of scales of households, it was concluded that the model can enable applicability to further household energy profile simulation.

A Decade On, How Has the Visibility of Energy Changed? Energy Feedback Perceptions from UK Focus Groups

The Smart Meter Rollout Programme in the UK has required energy suppliers to offer new smart meters to customers to provide near real-time energy use information and enable two-way communication between the meter and the central system. The provision was expected to result in meaningful energy reductions, but recent estimates suggest that these reductions may be as low as 2%. This paper contributes to the ongoing debate about the effectiveness of smart meters and in-home energy displays by providing insights on energy feedback perceptions from a series of focus groups with postgraduate consumers. In addition to domestic energy use, the study investigated how participants perceived their energy use at work and how they perceived the energy reduction efforts of their institutions and employers. A laddered and projective methodology was used to more deeply question participant perceptions and reveal their attitudes. The analysis of responses revealed a limited awareness around energy efficiency strategies and opportunities for more visual, mobile, engaging and target-driven interfaces for energy data. The findings also agree with previous observations that environmental concerns are not a key driver of energy reduction behaviours. This was shown by laddered questioning, not to be due to a lack of environmental concern, but rather the perception that reducing energy consumption would have negligible impact. A decade after in-home energy displays enabled a means of providing ‘visibility’ to ‘invisible’ energy consumption, little appears to have changed in the perception and experience of energy feedback.

Young urban households in Shanghai, China: Characteristics of energy use and attitudes

Current domestic energy saving policies are mainly focused on building fabrics and domestic appliances, with less attention to address occupants’ energy use behaviour and their attitudes towards potential policies. This study aims to address the gap in understanding domestic energy use through a survey in Shanghai, which focuses on the characteristics of energy use in urban households, the demographics of high energy consumers, and attitudes towards energy saving and smart meters. The survey results reveal a great variety within the target group of urban young households, with the average annual power density value of 10.9 kW h/m2/occupancy, between 2.0 to 35.7 kW h/m2/occupancy, varying by a factor of about 17.8. Intensive energy use results from stricter comfort standards and longer heating and cooling periods. For the targeted high energy consumers, real-time electricity pricing is suggested as an effective policy instrument. The respondents are more likely to agree with policy instruments of fiscal incentives and communication, rather than consumption or price control. The overall research results could be used by policy-makers in the design of energy saving policies relating to smart meters and contribute to the development of a more sustainable city in China.

Potential economic and energy impacts of substituting adaptive reuse for new building construction: A case study of Ontario

Adaptive reuse is an alternative to a building’s end-of-life where its function is extended to serve another purpose. Many studies suggest that adaptive reuse is more sustainable than typical demolition and new construction in terms of environmental, social, and economic impacts. However, these claims are qualitative in nature and are limited to analyses at the project scale. This paper presents a methodology based on Input-Output (IO) models for examining economic and energy impacts of substituting adaptive reuse for new building construction. An IO model for the Province of Ontario, Canada, was developed to study the impacts of adaptive reuse building construction. The building construction industries’ intermediate inputs and final demands were altered in the Ontario IO model to reflect changes in the supply and demand of adaptive reuse buildings in the construction industries. A basic scenario represents the situation where only the building’s superstructure and substructure are reused. The basic scenario was then extended to reflect the reuse of internal non-structural components. The Ontario IO model examines impacts to gross domestic product (GDP), industry outputs, employment and energy use (including rebound effects from household consumption changes). It was found that adaptive reuse building construction may benefit Ontario’s economy and reduce energy consumption under certain combinations of changes in supply and demand. The desired domain of adaptive reuse construction, where energy use decreases, while GDP and employment increases, is discerned for both the residential and non-residential building construction sectors in Ontario. This methodology may be used for other regions for which IO information exists.

Economic growth, exports, and role of energy conservation: Evidence from panel co-integration-based causality models in South Asia

This study examines the relationship among energy use, real gross domestic product, and exports and thereby the impact of energy conservation for the quest of a sustainable environment-gross domestic product growth in the panel of five South Asian countries. The aggregate production function framework is estimated by employing first/second generational panel co-integration-based models for the panel data covering the years 1980–2014. The empirical findings demonstrate a statistically significant panel error correction mechanism among real gross domestic product, capital, labor, and energy use in both export-added and export-excluded models. The findings of panel causality test depict a significant causal relationship running from export and energy use towards gross domestic product in the long run. Furthermore, a significant feedback relationship between energy use and gross domestic product and between exports and gross domestic product has been found in the short run. These findings of vector error correction model-based panel causality test imply that reducing/cutting the extant aggregate energy use (fossil fuel dominant) via conservation policies are somewhat wanting and could be implemented at the cost of lower gross domestic product and export growths, ceteris paribus. Therefore, for reducing the level of carbon emissions arising from fossil fuel-based energy use and for a sustainable aggregate energy use to the production sector per se, there is an immense need of developing environment friendly/green sources of energy in the region. These consolidated and concerted strides of developing and substituting environment friendly energy options into the extant aggregate energy use will, inter alia, ensure the sustainability of environment-gross domestic product growth in South Asia.

Trends in domestic energy use reduction and private renewable energy production

Domestic energy use can be directly influenced by personal choices. These choices include the selection of equipment (efficiency), mode of equipment use, consumer behaviour but also by self-production of electricity, space heating and/or cooling. Intelligent meters showing the actual use of electricity give insight in domestic energy use and is crucial in decreasing domestic energy use. However, households need better access to knowledge and experiences of experts to understand the potential choices to decrease their use of energy. Housing and equipment ‘labelling’ can give some support with these choices, but need to be more uniform and clear. Households controlling their own usage of energy and home production of electricity can make substantial savings on their energy bills. The paper describes experiences in practical situations using long term scientific and professional experiences.

THE SIMULATION ANALYSIS OF A PROPOSED ‘HYDRONIC RADIATOR’ SYSTEM TOWARDS LOW COST HOUSING OPERATION IN TEMPERATE AND HOT TROPICAL CLIMATES

ABSTRACT Fuel poverty is one of the global concerns affecting not only users' financial capacity or affordability for maintaining housing operation but also the occupants' health and wellbeing. Space heating and cooling require a relatively large amount of domestic energy use in housing. Therefore, this study was formed with the aim to propose an innovative approach to utilising free, clean renewable sources of energy applicable to the space heating and cooling of housing in both cold and hot regions. Accordingly, housing test facilities based in Melbourne, Australia, and Kuching, Malaysia, were selected and used for this study that examined the thermal performance of a proposed ‘hydronic radiator’ (HR) system through simulation and onsite measurements. The geothermal heat capacity of a ‘vertical ground heat exchanger’ (VGHE) installed in the house in Melbourne was examined previously by the authors and the VGHE measured data was also applied to this HR performance simulation. The water that circulates through the HRs is heated by sunlight and VGHE or cooled by night sky radiation. This study drew conclusions that the sole utilisation of renewable sources through these proposed HR space heating and cooling systems can provide thermally accessible or comfortable indoor living environments in both heating or cooling dominant regions. Thus, fuel poverty issues may be alleviated through HR system application. The HRs can remove a ‘sensible’ portion of metabolic heat, but they cannot effectively contribute to the ‘latent’ heat removal. Thus, the future potential use or effect of ‘flow-through’ HRs, which are integrated into a underfloor air distribution (UFAD) plenum, was also dsicussed in this study. In the test house located in Melbourne, the flow-through HR UFAD system is currently under development. Therefore, the performance will be measured once the system has come into operation for further testing.

Revealing heterogeneous causal links among financial development, construction industry, energy use, and environmental quality across development levels.

This work investigates the dynamic heterogeneous causal links among financial development, construction industry, energy use, and environmental quality across the development levels, for 30 Chinese provinces during the period 2001-2016. For this purpose, a model of environmental quality has been constructed introducing the financial development and construction industry as endogenous factors. A Pedroni's cointegration is employed and found the long-run cointegrating mechanism among the variables of interest. The dynamic common correlated effects mean group approach (DCCEMGA) is adopted to estimate the impact elasticities. Moreover, for robustness check, a sensitivity analysis is conducted employing common correlated effects mean group approach (CCEMGA). The main results are first, a two-way positive causal bridge is existent between gross domestic product (GDP) and energy use, construction industry and GDP, and financial development and GDP. In terms of the contribution of the construction industry to economic performance, construction industry-driven growth acceleration impact is observed. Second, a one-way positive causal link is identified running from financial development (both the banking sector and stock market) to the construction industry and is termed as finance-driven construction promotion effect. Also, a one-sided positive causal connection is operating from financial development and construction industry to energy use and carbon dioxide emissions. Finally, a standard environmental Kuznets curve (EKC), financial development-augmented EKC, and construction industry-augmented EKC hypotheses are found valid in the whole country and eastern region of China. Based on empirics, a regional heterogeneity has been observed in terms of the degree of impact and statistical significance while comparing the regional panels. The sensitivity analysis proved the empirical results to be robust and reliable. Moreover, based on the findings, policy recommendations are documented. Graphical abstract.

Changing energy cultures? Household energy use before and after a building energy efficiency retrofit

Government- and community-initiated energy retrofits of existing residential buildings abound across Europe. This paper argues that retrofitting initiatives need to extend their current emphasis on technical-material changes to include an equally strong focus on researching and potentially changing the energy-related expectations, aspirations and actual activities of those who inhabit and use these buildings. The concept of energy cultures serves as a useful heuristic to structure the analysis of household energy demand and internal environment. Covering three key elements of energy culture – 1) material conditions that relate directly to domestic energy use, 2) householders’ attitudes, perceptions and norms concerning the use of energy and 3) observable everyday practices that use energy –, and their interactions, we examine data from 20 households in a social housing estate in Ireland collected before and after retrofitting. Overall, the results highlight the urgent need for an integrated approach to energy retrofitting that combines technology-aided changes in material conditions with a parallel re-shaping of householders’ views and practices to achieve real and lasting reductions in energy use. The latter seems particularly pressing given both the persistence of many energy-intensive domestic activities and the possible emergence of rebound effects that have the potential to cancel out at least some of the savings made through retrofitting.

Gender and energy: domestic inequities reconsidered

ABSTRACT Energy poverty is widely recognized as a problem that affects millions of households globally. Particularly in the ‘Global North’ context, research into this phenomenon has tended to treat households as monolithic units, with little investigation into whether and how energy poverty is differentially experienced within homes. We address this research lacuna by scrutinizing the gender dimensions of domestic energy use and deprivation. Drawing on extensive qualitative research in Poland, Greece and Czechia, we identify two ways in which energy poverty is differentially experienced along gender lines: household practices of responding to and resisting energy poverty, and the emotional labour of living with energy poverty. We also demonstrate how the negotiation of domestic energy deprivation can unveil not only gendered vulnerabilities, but also agency and emancipatory mechanisms. The paper thus provides insights that set an agenda for further research on gendered energy injustices beyond a simplistic, dichotomized victimization discourse.

Constructing domestic retrofit as a new urban infrastructure: experimentation, equitability and contested priorities

ABSTRACTBritish cities and residential suburbs were originally developed under a modernist growth logic: separating home from work, with little concern for energy use. But recent political and social priorities such as climate change and energy security have created an imperative to reduce domestic energy use, with many existing dwellings rendered “obsolete” on account of their poor energy efficiency. This precipitated a need to develop domestic retrofit – the modification of building fabrics and systems to improve their energy efficiency – as an urban infrastructure. The UK Government responded in 2011 with policies such as the “Green Deal”, through which coalitions of actors in cities including local authorities, voluntary sector organisations and private businesses were encouraged to experiment with place-based retrofit. This paper examines the challenges and effects of developing a domestic retrofit infrastructure in a North London borough under particularly challenging policy conditions. We develop a hybrid framework for understanding the process and product of this place-based experimentation and through this we ask two questions: 1. How did both local and national conditions enable and limit the development of this infrastructure? 2. Was the emerging urban infrastructure functional and equitable? In Haringey’s case, a strong local political agenda positioned retrofit as a development opportunity and vehicle for reducing inequality, but national priorities around market-making and technological fixes dominated emerging responses. Whilst Haringey’s efforts in a difficult policy context did result in retrofits and improvements to around a thousand properties, the emerging infrastructure of retrofit services was incomplete, inequitable and temporary.

Sustainable transitions in residential energy use: Characteristics and governance of urban-based initiatives across Europe

Abstract Reducing domestic energy use in cities has become a key focus in achieving sustainability goals. Recent and on-going efforts to address excessive residential energy use have taken various forms and have been initiated by a range of different actors. This paper presents evidence from the analysis of a database of 249 recent sustainable energy initiatives that have been implemented at various scales in and across urban areas in Europe. The paper examines common trends and characteristics in the type of initiatives that are promoted, including the problem definition, general approach, and implementation method. A second focus of enquiry centers on the governance mechanisms that underpin these initiatives. Here, attention turns to the main actors responsible for driving initiatives, the frequency and various forms of implementing partnerships, and the funding source through which the selected initiatives are financed. Two major themes emerged from reviewing the data, namely stratification and integration. Stratification or integration was evident across five key areas including problem framing, general approach, engagement mechanisms, governance, and evaluation frameworks. A corresponding typology of initiatives is presented under four categories: Enhancing; Directional; Experimental; and Responsive. Applying the typology to the dataset shows that enhancing initiatives aimed at optimizing technology or individual behavior are most prevalent (56%). Experimental initiatives that deliberate with new ways of living (16%) or responsive initiatives that consider contextual-needs (14%) are less prevalent and are more likely to occur at a smaller scale. Overall, we argue that integration across key areas can increase the success of initiatives that aim to achieve long-term sustainable transformation in household energy use.

Sensors, sense-making and sensitivities: UK household experiences with a feedback display on energy consumption and indoor environmental conditions

Smart metering of domestic energy use allows consumer feedback through in-home displays (IHDs), websites or smart phone apps. Research has illustrated the need for additional ‘sense-making’ information to help households make informed energy-related decisions. This study investigates how household members respond when energy consumption data is integrated with information on indoor environmental conditions (IECs) and coupled with advice on energy saving actions. An integrated system of energy meters and IEC sensors was trialled in 19 predominantly social housing properties in the Midlands (England). Households were provided with a tablet computer and feedback was provided via a dedicated ‘Energy Dashboard’ web-based software application (app). The app was designed in collaboration with the social housing provider to display electricity and gas consumption data as well as data on three IECs: relative humidity, carbon dioxide and temperature. This paper draws on the findings from two rounds of semi-structured interviews with participants. All respondents using the app reported that they made use of the IEC data within the sense-making process, finding temperature and humidity to be useful in linking energy consumption, activities and household conditions. Interpretation of IEC data tended to increase with time as understanding increased. However, different users ‘noticed’, ‘interpreted’ and ‘enacted’ information differently as they integrated this with other sources of information, such as feedback from household members and experiential knowledge. The findings suggest that, whilst incorporating greater contextual information, such as IECs, into feedback displays can help users make sense of domestic energy consumption, the outcomes of the sense-making process will be different for different households. Nevertheless, the provision of such information appears to support householders to make decisions about their energy management that they feel appropriate for their household’s wellbeing needs, within the bounds of their agency.

Energy demand substitution from biomass to imported kerosene: Evidence from Tanzania

We analyze domestic household energy demand and use patterns in Tanzania, using a detailed household survey of purchase transactions, a multivariate probit model, and the QUAIDS modeling framework. The main fuel sources that we study are kerosene, charcoal, and firewood. These three accounted for 96.5% of spending on energy by households. Charcoal and firewood are used for cooking while kerosene is used for lighting and cooking. Kerosene is almost exclusively imported, while charcoal and firewood are produced domestically. These fuel sources are important, given the impacts of wood harvesting on the environment and kerosene imports on public finances. We find a statistically significant response in kerosene demand to charcoal prices, suggesting a pattern of substitution, but no strong substitution relationships between other fuel pairs. These results, which we use in a simulation of tariff change, imply that policies centered on price changes may not be effective in changing consumer behavior unless alternative sources of energy are readily accessible.