Rural Household Energy Consumption Research Articles

Rural household nonagricultural income and energy transition: Evidence from central China

Promoting China's energy transition is essential for achieving low-carbon development and achieving the nation's carbon neutrality target. Previous research has primarily focused on industrial production energy consumption transition paths, and rural household energy consumption has rarely been investigated. This study focuses on the impact of nonagricultural income on rural household energy consumption in the Huang-Huai-Hai region using questionnaire data, examining the contribution of rural households' nonagricultural income to the energy consumption transition (i.e., from dirty energy sources such as firewood to clean energy sources such as liquified petroleum gas (LPG)). Instrumental variable two-stage least squares (IV-2SLS) estimation and IV-tobit models are applied to solve potential endogeneity problems. The results demonstrate that nonagricultural income can promote rural households' energy structure transformation, increase spending on clean energy such as LPG and electricity, and decrease expenditure on dirty energy sources such as coal and firewood. Further examination reveals that nonagricultural income can enable rural households to afford modern necessities and transition to cleaner, more efficient energy. The study proposes promoting rural energy structure transformation to boost sustainable development and increase nonagricultural income. Strengthening skills training, encouraging more off-farm employment, and other approaches will diversify rural households' income.

The impact of urban–rural integration on carbon emissions of rural household energy consumption: evidence from China

The impact of urban–rural integration on carbon emissions of rural household energy consumption: evidence from China

Off-farm income promotes energy transition in the Pan-Third Pole cross-national region

The Pan-Third Pole region comprises multiple nations affected by climate vulnerability and energy inequality, wherein promoting energy transitions in rural households would provide a path to combat climate change. Identifying the factors that drive rural household energy consumption and the transition is important. This study performed a micro-survey of 1060 rural households in five countries in the Pan-Third Pole region and empirically analyzed the relationships between off-farm income, energy consumption, and energy transitions. The off-farm income of rural households was found to have a significantly positive effect (p < 0.01) on energy expenditure, indicating that energy expenditure increased with increasing off-farm income. Off-farm income has a significantly positive effect (p < 0.01) on the proportion of commercial energy but a significantly negative effect on the proportion of noncommercial energy. These results indicate that increasing off-farm income can adjust the energy consumption structure of rural households. Furthermore, a robustness check by substituting independent variables, instrumental variable method (IV), and propensity score matching method (PSM) provided strong evidence to prove the robustness of the results. The heterogeneity analysis showed that the effects of off-farm income on energy expenditure and transitions differed among countries, off-farm income had no significant impact on energy expenditure in Cambodia and Myanmar, but it worked for China, Nepal, and Thailand. Finally, policy implications are proposed to promote energy transition in the Pan-Third pole region: providing more full-time or part-time off-farm employment opportunities, employment assistance or skill training by local governments; increasing the pace of infrastructure construction to solve energy inaccessibility; multiple measures to promote the education and environmental knowledge.

Digital transition and the clean renewable energy adoption in rural family: evidence from Broadband China

IntroductionThe increasing digital transformation and the global need for sustainable energy solutions have sparked considerable interest in the examination of digital technologies' impact on the adoption of clean renewable energy. However, limited research focuses on energy consumption in rural households, especially in developing countries such as China.MethodsThis study leverages the quasi-natural experiment provided by the Broadband China Policy (BCP) and utilizes data from the China Labor-force Dynamics Survey (CLDS) spanning 2012 to 2016. Our investigation aims to understand the effect of the digital transition on the adoption of clean renewable energy within rural families. We employ staggered Difference-in-Difference (DID) and Doubly Robust Staggered DID estimators to assess this impact, allowing us to explore regional heterogeneity.ResultsOur findings reveal that implementing the BCP significantly influences clean renewable energy adoption, although this effect varies across different regions. Specifically, in the middle region, the BCP results in a notable 5.8% increase in clean renewable energy adoption compared to non-pilot cities. However, in the east and west regions, the BCP is associated with a decrease of 12.6% and 13.5%, respectively, in clean renewable energy adoption. Dynamic effect analysis further indicates that the east region had already experienced high clean renewable energy adoption prior to the BCP's implementation, while the BCP positively influences clean renewable energy intentions in the west region.DiscussionOur analysis identifies three significant channels through which the BCP affects clean renewable energy adoption: population size, economic size, and income level. Larger populations and greater economic size enhance the BCP's impact on clean renewable energy adoption. These findings provide empirical evidence for developing countries that seek to harness digital development for technological advancement, industrial upgrading, and carbon emission reduction.

Rural Energy Transition for Cooking in India—Revisiting the Drivers

The recent analysis from IEA (International Energy Agency) on energy transition in India highlights that cooking continues to be the weakest link in the energy transition process for rural households and that rural energy transition of households to cleaner fuel is nonlinear in nature. Several programs have been designed to plague the voids and address this nonlinearity, but the transition to cleaner alternatives for cooking did not happen in the pace it should ideally have. Therefore, an empirical exercise was carried out at a national level to revisit the disconnect between the income growth and energy transition and identify the drivers of the energy transition process in cooking at the national as well as at the subnational state level for a developing country. The paper adds to the current scholarship on drivers of household energy transition by analyzing the relationship between household energy choices and non-income determinants and proves the nonlinearity in energy consumption of rural households of Bihar. Analyzing unit level record from National Sample Survey, an empirical exercise was carried out by using multinomial logit model to identify the potential determining factors at the individual household and group level. The group effect analysis through fixed and random effect has been conducted purposely to understand if social and cultural norms or community level factors within a village society have any effect on the cooking energy transition of rural households and if that offsets the effect of household income in energy transition for cooking. Furthermore, to statistically examine the perceived non-linearity in the consumption of cooking fuel such as firewood by rural households, Brock–Dechert–Scheinkman (BDS) test was conducted for rural households of 38 districts of Bihar. The analysis helps in inferring that subsidy on modern fuel and/or other cooking alternatives alone may not suffice to drive the transition process, but more targeted intervention rooted in the local cultural context in consonance with social and cultural norms or community level factors could be more effective for sustained rural energy transition.

Identifying the fundamental drives behind the 10-year evolution of northern China's rural household energy and emission: Implications for 2030 and beyond

Rural household energy, particularly solid fuels, in northern China is thought to be a major source of air pollution. However, there is no complete, systematic, and reliable dataset for northern China's rural areas owing to the diversity of energy types used and the difficulty in acquiring data, particularly for solid fuels. Here we assessed existing progress in estimating solid fuels and proposed a practical route for deriving the information on rural household energy consumption and structure in northern China spanning 2010–2020, with important findings. (i) In 2010, the total rural household energy consumption for northern China was 287.51 million tons standard coal equivalent (TCE), while for 2020, it decreased to 205.14 million TCE, showing a 29 % decrease and an annual down 3.3 % averagely. Among a number of underlying reasons, China's urbanization process, which made the rural population shrink year by year, was primarily responsible. (ii) The share of clean energy in northern rural areas began at 4.2 % in 2010 and grew to 15.6 % in 2020, displaying a sustained improvement in energy structure. Particularly in the second 5 years, the clean energy share of policy priority areas grew by 20.0 percentage points (from 15.0 % in 2010 to 35.0 % in 2020), which is more than 18 percentage points higher than the growth of non-priority areas (from 2.9 % in 2010 to 4.5 % in 2020). Clean air policy, particularly the “two replacements” (replace coal with gas and electricity), in priority areas played a core role in changing the energy structure. (iii) Although both air pollutants and CO2 are predicted to decrease in 2030, there is a large gap between expected 2030 emissions and hoped 2060 carbon neutrality in northern rural households. It is thus necessary to gradually boost the share of green electricity (non-fossil) and to reverse the trend of “biomass fuel curtailment” in rural residential sector. This calls for the improvement in biomass style (e.g., biomass pellets) and in stove efficiency (e.g., complete combustion).

How to promote rural household energy transition in energy poverty area? Evidence from the Pumqu River Basin, Tibetan Plateau

Rural household energy transition from biomass energy to modern energy is essential for poverty alleviation and sustainable development. Existing studies have explored the determinants of rural household energy transition, but few of them consider household energy availability for modern energy, which is crucial for rural household energy consumption especially in energy poverty areas such as the Tibetan Plateau. This study establishes an analytical framework for exploring the determinants of rural household energy transition by considering household energy availability and household characteristics. By employing the Tobit model, the empirical analysis of Pumqu River Basin (PRB) of the Tibetan Plateau is conducted. The results show that (1) biomass energy is still the dominant energy source in the PRB, with 99.27% of users and 90.77% of rural household energy consumption. (2) The limited energy accessibility in the PRB plays a significant negative role in accelerating rural household energy transition. (3) Educational level of householder, per capita living space, the number of rural household appliances, and community organizations are the drivers for rural household energy transition, whereas per capita livestock number and per capita grassland areas are the constraints. The findings of this study can help decision makers formulate effective measures to promote rural household energy transition in energy poverty area. The framework introduced can be extended for application to examine the determinants of rural household energy transition in other regions.

Study on Carbon Emission Pathways in the Rural Areas of Guangdong Province

In response to global warming, China has formulated the “double carbon” strategic goals of peaking carbon dioxide emissions before 2030 and reaching carbon neutrality before 2060. The problem of rural carbon emissions is often ignored due to underdeveloped industries and services. In this paper, the carbon emission pathways in the rural areas of Guangdong Province are investigated. Since energy consumption is the main source of carbon emissions, the factor analysis was used to analyze the main factors affecting rural household energy consumption and agricultural production energy consumption. Multiple linear regression was conducted to predict the rural energy consumption demand in Guangdong. Furthermore, the current situation and development trend of rural energy supply, demand and consumption structure, and the potential of renewable energy development were considered to predict carbon emissions in the rural areas of Guangdong. Moreover, the carbon emission pathways in the rural areas of Guangdong were discussed under two scenarios: the base scenario and the radical model.

Research on the Impact of Digital Literacy on Farmer Households' Green Cooking Energy Consumption: Evidence from Rural China.

In the era of the digital economy, farmers’ digital literacy has a profound impact on household green cooking energy consumption. Based on data from the China Family Panel Studies (CFPS) in 2018, this paper constructs a digital literacy index using an entropy method and employs the Probit model regression and mediation effect model test to study the impact effect and theoretical mechanism of individual digital literacy on household green cooking energy consumption. The research results show that the improvement of digital literacy can effectively promote the consumption of green cooking energy in households. After using the IV-Probit model and CMP model to solve the endogeneity, this conclusion remains valid; The heterogeneity analysis shows that the impact of digital literacy on green cooking energy consumption of households in different regions and different income stages is different. This performance is specific to the eastern and western regions and low-income households. The improvement in digital literacy can significantly promote green cooking energy consumption in rural households; however, in the central region and high-income households the improvements were insignificant. Mechanism analysis shows that digital literacy has a significant positive impact on household green cooking energy consumption through non-agricultural employment and information acquisition. Based on this, it is suggested that the construction of a digital countryside should not only consider the construction of digital infrastructure, but also reasonably guide the cultivation of the internal digital literacy of the construction subject. Moreover, the cultivation of digital literacy should not only focus on regional differences, but also focus on key subjects and implement precise cultivation. We should give full play to the synergistic effect of digital literacy, and pay attention to the non-agricultural employment of farmers and information elements.

Influence of Nature Reserves on the Energy Consumption Structure of Local Farmers.

The energy consumption of farmers residing around nature reserves is an important factor that affects the coordinated development of nature reserves and the surrounding communities. The optimization of the energy consumption structure of farmers around nature reserves is important for maintaining the resources and environment of nature reserves and saving natural resources. Based on the microscopic survey data for the energy consumption structure of 956 rural households around six nature reserves in Liaoning province, a multiple linear regression model was used in this study to match tendency scores and empirically examine the impacts of regulatory policies of nature reserves on the energy consumption of rural households in Liaoning province. In addition, the influence of the income and environmental cognition of farmers on the energy consumption of rural households around nature reserves was examined. The results showed that the regulatory policies of the nature reserves were conducive to reducing the traditional biomass energy consumption of the farmers. The nature reserves indirectly affect the energy consumption of the farmers by influencing their income, and cognition plays an important role in reducing the traditional biomass energy consumption of farmers in nature reserves. Compared with provincial nature reserves, national nature reserves have a more evident impact on the energy consumption of farmers. Based on the empirical results, farmers should be encouraged to reduce their high-pollution and high-emission energy consumption activities and should be provided with technical support and financial subsidies for clean energy, such as solar energy and biogas. The following measures should be taken to maintain the ecological environment of the nature reserves and to reduce the contradiction between the nature reserves and farmers: supervise the coal quality in the surrounding areas of nature reserves, improve the non-agricultural employment ability of farmers around nature reserves and the photovoltaic poverty alleviation project in Liaoning province, increase the income of farmers and promote the energy consumption of farmers around nature reserves, strengthen the management of provincial nature reserves, promptly change the traditional idea of ‘depend on the mountain and water’ adopted by farmers, improve the environmental awareness of farmers residing around nature reserves, and advocate green energy consumption.

A Review on the Rural Household Energy in China From 1990s—Transition, Regional Heterogeneity, Emissions, Energy-Saving, and Policy

Rural energy is related to the domestic energy supply, consumption, and improvement of living standards of more than one-third of the population in China. In the “14th Five-Year Plan,” it has been clearly pointed out that it is necessary to strengthen the clean utilization of coal and implement the construction of rural clean energy projects. At present, the energy consumption structure of rural areas in China is transiting from traditional solid energy to commercial energy and clean energy. Based on this background, this paper reviews the transition trend, influencing factors, and regional differences of China’s rural household energy consumption structure from the 1990s. Taking into account China’s goal of carbon peaking by 2030 and carbon neutrality by 2060, carbon dioxide and pollutant emissions generated in the process of energy consumption and the energy-saving potential of rural households are analyzed and discussed. Moreover, the evolution of rural energy policies in China is presented and related proposals are also made. This review aims to provide reference for relevant researchers and policy makers.

Characteristics and influencing factors of energy consumption in Chinese rural households.

In the 14th Five-Year Plan, China clearly proposed to achieve carbon peak by 2030 and carbon neutralization by 2060, which will be incorporated into the Ecological Civilization Construction. Therefore, it is particularly important to control the consumption of fossil energy in rural areas. Under this background, the paper is based on the filed survey data of rural households and uses the method of CLAD (the censored least absolute deviations) estimation of Tobit model to study the influencing factors and structural characteristics of rural households' energy consumption. The results show that the consumption of traditional energy with low-quality takes a main proportion of total energy consumption in rural households, which is unreasonable and needs transforming urgently. Also, there is heterogeneity among regions. Family characteristics, family wealth, and energy conservation initiative have an impact on total energy consumption and different types of energy. Especially, households with high frequency of energy conservation behavior and strong policy perception will reduce the consumption of high-polluting firewood and increase the use of coal and electricity.

Energy consumption and income of the poor in rural China: Inference for poverty measures

In this study, we investigate the relationship between energy consumption and income of poor rural households in China and recover measures for relative poverty from household energy demand of the poor. With novel data collected from 16 counties in eight provinces of China, we apply semi-parametric energy demand models to capture the nonlinear relationship between income and energy consumption and parametric models to find the effect of income on energy demand within different groups. The relative poverty line is inferred from the empirical results of demand models and is defined as the income threshold point after which household energy consumption begins to rise significantly. As a result, we find that the poor household's demand for energy increases with income after a threshold point, and the relative poverty line of rural households in China is estimated at 5153.47 yuan per capita in 2015. Our results suggest that when a poor rural household's income passes the relative poverty threshold, its increasing energy demand comes primarily from biomass and non-clean commercial energy. The findings of this study suggest policies to support energy transition and upgrade in rural China and stimulate rural households to substitute non-clean energy with clean energy.

Improving the Load Estimation Process in the Design of Rural Electrification Systems

The design of reliable and sustainable rural electrification systems relies on accurate prediction of the electrical load. This paper evaluates the current methods for load estimation and proposes an improved approach for load estimation for off-grid unelectrified rural communities that yields more accurate estimates. Improved accuracy is mainly due to better modelling of the influence of customer habits and gender on the estimated current and future load using the Markov chain process. A program was developed using MATLAB software to generate load profiles. The results show that gender considerations have a significant impact on load profiles and that the Markov chain process can suitably be used to determine year-to-year load profiles by incorporating the effect of changes in customer habits on the estimated load. The results from the case study on energy consumption in rural community households showed an increase in average daily consumption when gender was considered during load estimation. The peak consumption when gender was considered was about 50% higher than the value for when gender was not considered.

The consumption patterns and determining factors of rural household energy: A case study of Henan Province in China

This study considers the largest rural province in China, Henan Province, as an example to analyse government policies aimed at ensuring household energy supply and promoting the clean transformation of the rural energy structure. In addition, rural household energy consumption modes and the probability that families will purchase energy-consuming products are investigated. The factors that influence household energy consumption decisions and the energy ladder are examined with a logistic regression. The results show that “gas + electricity” has become the prevailing combined cooking energy pattern in the investigated rural area and that 33% of households use this type of cooking energy. Agricultural income has an obvious positive impact on the rural cooking energy ladder; moreover, increasing households’ agricultural income is important for promoting cleaner cooking energy consumption, as the total income level determines whether energy-consuming products are purchased. The process of urbanization could accelerate the upgrading of rural energy consumption because households with more members who work in or near cities have a greater motivation to use modern cooking energy sources. As economic development and income increase, it is important to implement energy transition policies to improve the supply and consumption of clean energy in rural areas.

Разработка системы мониторинга электроснабжения сельского домовладения в средней полосе России

The article explains the development of a monitoring system for electrical power and energy consumption of rural households in order to obtain reliable data on daily, monthly and annual loads, the wind speed and direction, voltage and current on solar panel, which are necessary to develop a methodology for choosing equipment for RES-based power supply system for rural households in central region of Russia.

Study on Energy Consumption of Rural Household Heating Mode in Winter

Although rural household heating systems provide comfortable living environment in winter, household energy consumption increases year by year. The best household heating system has become a concerned issue in rural areas. Two main types of heating, a wall panel heating system and a radiant floor-heating system, are modelled and simulated according to some regulatory documents. The annual cost method and Value Engineering are used to compare the economy of two systems. The simulation results show that the rural household energy consumption of the radiant floor-heating system is lower than that of the wall panel heating system under the same comfortable condition. The final economic conclusion is that the radiant floor-heating system is more suitable in northern China.

Transport energy consumption of rural households in the Tibetan Plateau of China

Transportation has become the world's second-largest energy-consuming sector, yet existing works mainly focus on the macro perspective and the causal relationships with social–economic–environment dimensions, leaving a significant knowledge gap at the household or individual level. Studying household-scale transport energy structure research is of great significance for exploring the driving mechanism of carbon dioxide emissions and promoting sustainable development. This study focuses on the region of the Tibetan Plateau of China. Field-based surveys and semi-structured interviews were conducted to investigate the transport energy consumption of rural households from the perspectives of sub-region (agricultural area, pastoral area, agropastoral area) and income (low-income, lower-middle-income, middle-income, upper-middle-income and high-income). On the basis of 498 samples, detailed energy consumption structures and environmental factors are presented. The authors hope that in the future, there will be more reports on household transport energy in different regions to provide a scientific basis for understanding and promoting household energy transition.

Rural Household Energy Consumption Investigation and Structural Pattern Analysis of Xuanwei study area in Central Yunnan

Rural household energy utilization is an important consumption that related to the survival and development of regional rural residents. With the deepening of the strategy of poverty alleviation and rural revitalization in China, the problem of energy consumption in rural households has become the focus of attention. In this paper, Xuanwei County, which is typical representative in Central Yunnan, is selected as the research case. Through the field investigation and questionnaire survey, the energy consumption status and structure pattern of rural households in the mountainous areas of the Central Yunnan Plateau are analysed and studied by using the methods of statistical perspective analysis and data induction and sort out. The main results are as follows: 1) In Central Yunnan, the current situation of rural household energy consumption is belong to the “electricity+” hybrid basic structure pattern, which is mainly based on electricity and combined with coal, fuel-wood, straw and so on to be of the diversified structure energy consumption characteristic. 2) Though there are 13 kinds of rural household energy consumption hybrid patterns in the study area, but only six kinds is found belong to dominant hybrid energy utilization structure patterns, namely, “electric-coal-firewood”, “electric-firewood-straw” and “electric-coal-straw”, “electric-firewood” and “electric-coal”, as well as “single electricity” utilization type of energy mixed mode. In general, through the rural household energy investigation analysis is only completed in Xuanwei case, the general characteristics and its structural pattern in Central Yunnan can been obtained in the same thing. So the results will be helpful to guide the formulation of rural energy policy and management optimal utilization of regional rural energy in Central Yunnan and promote the implementation of National Rural Revitalization and Precision Poverty Alleviation Strategy.

Exploring the characteristics and drivers of indirect energy consumption of urban and rural households from a sectoral perspective

AbstractChina is actively taking measures to guide the household energy‐saving consumption pattern because the total household indirect energy consumption and CO2 emissions have rapidly multiplied from 2002 to 2017 with an annual growth rate of 5.95%, and 5.56%, respectively. This paper calculates indirect energy consumption and CO2 emissions by four energy sources (raw coal, crude oil, natural gas, and electricity), analyzes the energy structure, and conducts a structural decomposition analysis in urban and rural areas in China from 2002 to 2017. The results reveal that the indirect energy consumption and CO2 emissions of urban households was 3.84 and 3.80 times, respectively, that of rural households in 2017 with most contributions from the ‘Agriculture, Forestry, Animal Husbandry, and Fishery’, ‘Foods and Tobacco’, and ‘OTHERS’ sectors. The energy consumption structure has changed. The percentage of coal consumption falls from 66.87% to 57.62%. Electricity consumption, ranked second, increased substantially from 10.77% to 22.90%. The key sectors of the energy mix have been found to help energy conservation. The high indirect energy consumption sectors with higher indirect energy intensity are the key sectors, especially the ‘Processing of Petroleum, Coking and Processing of Nuclear Fuel’ and ‘Production and Supply of Electric Power and Heat Power’. The consumption structure effect is more obvious in urban areas than in rural areas. In the process of urbanization, its effect has little impact on urban indirect energy consumption. It implies that the focus is on optimizing consumption structure rather than reducing consumption scale. © 2020 Society of Chemical Industry and John Wiley &amp; Sons, Ltd.