Per-capita Energy Consumption Research Articles

Unveiling the perspectives of Swedish homeowners on embracing space sufficiency within the context of energy renovation

Buildings significantly impact environmental sustainability and resource consumption, highlighting the urgent need for holistic and sustainable approaches within the built environment. This study employs a mixed-methods approach, combining focus groups and online surveys to examine the willingness of Single-Family Housing (SFH) owners in Sweden’s Kronoberg Region to adopt space sufficiency interventions during energy renovations and using the Attitude-Behavior-Context (ABC) theoretical framework to identify the factors influencing these decisions. The interventions studied include downsizing, optimizing space use, and converting underutilized areas into smaller living units, aiming to reduce per-capita energy consumption, and decrease both operational and embodied carbon emissions.The findings reveal low interest among SFH owners in adopting these measures, primarily due to concerns about lifestyle changes, loss of comfort, privacy, status, and property value depreciation. While personal and psychological factors play a role in adoption, external factors—such as regulatory policies, economic incentives, social norms, and technical solutions—are often more critical, either facilitating or hindering the implementation of sufficiency measures. The study also highlights that homeowners with larger, child-free properties are more receptive to sufficiency interventions, suggesting that life stage significantly influences readiness for change.The study calls for a systemic approach that promotes behavioral, normative, and cultural shifts through comprehensive regulations, policies, and incentives, creating the necessary conditions for broad adoption. Tailored design proposals and support structures, such as One-Stop Shop (OSS) models, are crucial in guiding homeowners through the transition. Government involvement is essential in establishing the frameworks needed to drive sufficiency, transforming homes from static to dynamic structures that evolve with changing household needs. Promoting flexible design, innovative policies, and financial incentives is vital for increasing adoption, with early adopters playing a pivotal role in accelerating market acceptance.

Urban population density and energy conservation: Empirical evidence from 276 cities in China

Reducing urban energy consumption is a crucial step towards achieving sustainable urban development. Urban energy plays a fundamental role in urban development, and while previous studies have examined the relationship between population size and energy conservation, the impact of increasing population density on per capita energy consumption (PCEC) remains unclear. To achieve urban energy conservation in China, it is vital to comprehend this significant relationship. This study constructs a spatial regression model to examine the relationship between population density and PCEC using 9 years of balanced panel data from 276 cities to fill a gap in the literature. The results of spatial autocorrelation indicate a significant negative relationship and heterogeneity between population density and PCEC. The results of spatial regression show that for every 1% increase in population density, there is a subsequent increase in PCEC of 0.074%. Our findings suggest that lower PCEC correlation is associated with higher urban population density. This study can be a reference for policymakers seeking new energy conservation strategies for urban development.

End-use energy projections: Future regional disparity and energy poverty at the household level in rural and urban areas of India

Regional disparity and energy poverty are major challenges for India on a macro-scale. In this study we explored regional disparity and energy poverty in India's future by formulating a series of unique mathematical functions while analyzing historical time-series of per-capita energy consumption (PEC). The functions formulated have important implications on India's approaches towards rapid urbanization, access to clean energy, and rural electrification. We also analyzed end-use energy consumption in low, mid and high-developing states and examined the impacts of the uncertainty of socio-economic changes. As per our estimates, energy consumption in urban areas, is likely to grow by 3.6 times from 2010 to 2070, whereas that in rural areas is likely to decrease by 0.6 times. Energy poverty among Indian states narrows by 2050, while energy consumption in the mid and high-developing states rises rapidly as urbanization and per-capita income increase. Even with this consumption growth, India's average household PEC in 2070 may remain lower than the world average recorded in 2010. The provision of advanced energy resources and technologies is therefore likely to be an important policy challenge for India, especially in the rural areas of low-developing states, as the country pursues its target of reducing energy poverty and regional disparity.

Spatial-temporal variations and influencing factors of air quality in China's major cities during COVID-19 lockdown.

To control the spread of COVID-19, the Chinese government announced a "lockdown" policy, and the citizens' activities were restricted. This study selected three standard air quality indexes, AQI, PM2.5, and PM10, of 2017-2021 in 40 major cities in six regions in China to analyze their changes, spatial-temporal distributions, and socioeconomic influencing factors. Compared with 2019, the values of AQI, PM2.5, and PM10 decreased, and the days with AQI levels "AQI ≤ 100" increased during the "lockdown" in 2020. Due to different degrees of industrialization, the concentration of air pollutants shows significant regional characteristics. The AQI values before and after the "lockdown" in 2020 show significant spatial autocorrelation, and the cities' AQI values in the north present high autocorrelation, and the cities in the south are in low autocorrelation. From the data at the national level, carbon emission intensity (CEI), per capita energy consumption (PEC), per capita GDP (PCG), industrialization rate (IR), and proportion of construction value added (PCVA) have the greatest impact on AQI. This study gives regulators confidence that if the government implements regionalized air quality improvement policies according to the characteristics of each region in China and reasonably plans socioeconomic activities, it is expected to improve China's air quality sustainably.

Testing stationarity of per capita energy consumption across the globe: a better picture using the wavelet framework.

The issue of examining the stationarity of per capita energy consumption (PCEC) series is central in energy literature. Most of the existing studies examine this issue by employing unit root tests based on the time domain only providing a partial picture of the problem at hand due to not including the information related to the frequency domain. In contrast to existing studies, the present study uses a recently projected wavelet-based unit root testing scheme-Fourier wavelet KSS (FWKSS) introduced by Aydin and Pata. Energy 207:118245 (2020) which has several advantages over the existing wavelet unit root tests such as the ones proposed by Fan and Gençay (2010). Specifically, the FWKSS takes care of any possible smooth structural break in the data series under examination. This study re-examines the stationarity of PCEC across the globe covering for the first time a total of 133 countries and including all income groups constituting 49 high-, 76 middle- and 8 low-income countries. The selection of countries is made based on the availability of at least 25years of annual time series data. The empirical results based on latest available data reveal that among 133 chosen countries, 67 countries are found to have non-stationary PCEC including 20 high-, 43 middle- and 4 low-income countries while the remaining 66 countries are found to have stationary PCEC including 29 high-, 33 middle- and 4 low-income countries. PCEC is found to be stationary in 79 of them including 35 high-, 40 middle- and 4 low-income countries. Some relevant policy implications are discussed as well.

Research on the Impact of Income Gap on Environmental Pollution Based on Balanced Panel Data of 48 Countries

Reconciling economic development with ecological environmental protection has always been a hot issue of the whole society. However, existing studies only consider the impact of per capita income on environmental pollution, while ignoring the existence of income gap and its possible impact on environmental pollution. Therefore, the paper focuses on the specific analysis of the relationship between income gap and environmental pollution in 48 countries and revising the EKC theory. The empirical analysis results show that: there is an M-shaped relationship between the income gap and the per-capita carbon emissions, and the three turning points are 0.27, 0.36 and 0.52; there is an N-shaped relationship between the per-capita income and the per-capita carbon emissions, and the two turning points are 5218.65 and 13766.50 international dollars; the per-capita carbon emissions increases significantly as the per-capita energy consumption increases; and there is a significant negative relationship between the urbanization rate and the per-capita carbon emissions, which provide theoretical reference for the government to formulate corresponding policy measures.

Statistical Analysis Based Survey of Indian Renewable Energy Scenario

Renewable energy is a solution for electricity generation for cleaner and green energy. The aim of this paper is to find the energy potential of India in terms of sources, per-capita energy consumption and the main potential consumers. Comparing consumption of fossil fuels and Renewable energy sources (RES) of India in 2019 and 2020 and finally to find whether there is any change in energy generation of two solar power plants in different geographical location of India with the help of independent t-test statistics. In this paper two statistical analysis are proposed. One is the statistical analysis of installed capacity, generation and consumption of fossil fuels and renewable energy in India. Other one is the statistical analysis of two solar power plants located at different geographical locations in India. From the statistical analysis it is found that, installed capacity of coal, RES and hydro is increased in 2020 as compared to 2019. Total demand in January 2020 is 2,77,140.33 MW whereas total installed capacity is 3,71,126 MW, this means that installed capacity is more but are not in running condition. From the statistical analysis of two independent solar power plants it is found that solar power plant-1 generates more energy but with high conversion loss hence poor efficiency.

Deep decarbonization pathways in the building sector: China’s NDC and the Paris agreement

China’s economic growth has been largely relying on the consumption of coal. The country has realized that its economic development has to be free from dependence on fossil fuels. On 30 June 2015, China submitted its ‘Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC)’ in preparation for the Conference of Parties 21 (COP21). One of the important actions in China’s NDC is to lower carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions per unit of GDP by 60% to 65% from 2005 levels by 2030. This study examines the efforts from China’s building sector (i.e. urban residential, rural residential and service) in achieving the CO2 reduction target stated in China’s NDC. Furthermore, this study also explores the post-NDC era and looks into the opportunities towards deep decarbonization in the building sector by mid-century for contributing to the Paris agreement. The study covers 31 provincial regions of mainland China anddisparities of climate and socioeconomic indicators across regions are fully considered. We use a bottom-up cost optimization model called AIM/Enduse to evaluate the CO2 reduction potential brought by efficient technologies in China’s building sector. Five scenarios are designed to illustrate the emission pathways through 2050. The results show that, when energy constraint and emission target is introduced in mitigation scenarios, new generation biomass contribute a lot to emission reduction. Reduction potential in the nearly zero emission scenario is mainly from the urban residential sector, and to achieve deep decarbonization by 2050, it is important to bring a significant reduction of per-capita energy consumption in addition to ci improvement both in urban and rural households. Co-benefit analysis suggests that air pollutants can also be significantly reduced by deep decarbonization policies.

Energy consumption and refugee migration in Turkey

This study investigates the effects of refugee migration on energy consumption in Turkey. Our results reveal that: (i) the total number of refugees and the number of people in refugee-like situations reduce per-capita energy consumption in Turkey, (ii) changes in total refugees and people in refugee-like situations lead to significant changes in total energy consumption in Turkey. Hence, policymakers should consider the environmental and energy impacts along with social and economic impacts of refugee migration in the context of sustainable development.

A Comparative Decomposition Analysis of the Factors Driving Energy-Related Carbon Emissions from Three Typical Provinces in China: Jiangsu, Henan and Inner Mongolia

An accurate understanding of the real situation of energy-related carbon emissions and the main factors driving the carbon emissions increments are crucial for China to realize its emission mitigation targets. Adopting the comparative decomposition of an extended LMDI (Log-Mean Divisia Index) approach, this study decomposed the changes in carbon emissions of Jiangsu, Henan, and Inner Mongolia, which are located in the eastern, central and western parts of China. This analysis led to three main findings. 1) During the period of 1996–2017, the energy-related carbon emissions in the examined provinces exhibited upward trends, but with some differences among the provinces. 2) The influences of driving factors on carbon emissions varied distinctly in different provinces and economic stages. Economic growth had the largest positive effect on provincial carbon emissions increases. From 1996 to 2017, the contribution rates of economic development to emissions growth in Henan, Jiangsu and Inner Mongolia were 307.19%, 205.08% and 161.26%, respectively. This influence was followed by urbanization and population size. 3) Energy intensity played a leading role in facilitating emissions-reduction in the examined provinces, except for during the tenth Five-Year Plan, followed by the energy structure. The effect of rural population proportion was the weakest among all the curbing factors. Furthermore, urban and rural resident′s energy consumption per capita demonstrated relatively minor impacts and disparate directions of influence in the different provinces and economic periods, but began to play increasing roles in driving up provincial emissions changes. For example, residential energy consumption in Jiangsu contributed over 7.9% to the total carbon emission growth in 1996-2017, among which urban residents' per-capita energy consumption contributed more than 3.8%. In view of these findings, policy makers should formulate targeted emission reduction measures that are based on the distinct situations and key factors which affect carbon emissions in each province.

Influence of latitude on raw material consumption by biomass combined heat and power plants: Energy conservation study of 50 cities and counties in the cold region of China

In the context of the mismatch between the potential in biomass energy and energy demand, proper space allocation and energy flow are necessary to improve the utilization rate of biomass energy, but the spatial distribution of heating demand has not been fully studied. This paper takes 50 cities/counties in the UTC+0800 time zone of the centralized winter heating zone in China and investigates the effects of geographical latitude on the per-capita raw material consumption by biomass combined heat and power plants (biomass CHP plants). Per-capita energy consumption is determined by electricity and heating consumption. The per-capita raw material consumption by biomass CHP plants during heating and non-heating periods is calculated by combining the average calorific value of each province with thermal efficiency. A regression model was constructed for latitude and per-capita raw material consumption by biomass CHP plants. The resulting curve exhibited an inverse S-shape during the heating period, with a positive correlation, but an insignificant correlation during the non-heating period. The study area can be divided into a high-impact area (regions to the south of 37°N and north of 45°N) and a low-impact area (regions between 37°N and 45°N). The initial investment process for the high-impact area should use scale and the heat-to-power ratio for planning biomass CHP plants according to geographical area and the design energy flow based on latitude to improve the self-sufficiency and energy efficiency of the area.

On energy sufficiency and the need for new policies to combat growing inequities in the residential energy sector

The decreasing cost and increasing availability of new technologies capable of improving household energy efficiency, generating and storing renewable energy, and decarbonizing major end use appliances have begun to significantly transform many residential communities across the U.S. Despite these positive developments however, the degree to which disadvantaged communities (DACs) have been able to participate in and benefit from these transformations remains far from equal. Using historical time series data at the zipcode level within Los Angeles County, we document the scale and extent to which DACs continue to be left behind. These data show per-capita levels of electricity and natural gas consumption within DACs that are, on average, about half of those seen within their more affluent counterparts. We argue that the magnitude of these differences reflect a fundamental departure in the use of energy from purposes of sufficiency to those of excess. We introduce a set of forecasts that show the extent to which current inequities in per-capita energy consumption, rates of vehicle electrification, and adoption of rooftop solar PV are likely to persist under the status quo. In conclusion, we suggest that the redistributive investment of public funds for the purpose of accelerating DAC participation in energy system transformations constitutes a socially optimal investment strategy – one which reflects the dramatically higher marginal utility of units of energy consumed at levels of sufficiency rather than excess.

Effect of population age structure on capacity for biomass cogeneration: A case study of a rural area in China

To improve the overall efficiency of biomass cogeneration, a case study was conducted in a rural area to investigate the effect of the age structure of the local population on the total capacity of the biomass cogeneration system. The age-structure-based energy consumption data of 150 households were obtained through a questionnaire survey. The data treatment and function fitting yielded functional relationships between the average family age and the annual household electricity, heat, total energy consumptions and the heat–electricity ratio of biomass cogeneration. Conclusions can be summarized as follows: (1) The annual household electricity, heat and total energy consumptions peak at average family ages of approximately 40, 60 and 55, respectively. The heat–electricity ratio of biomass cogeneration peaks at an average family age of approximately 68. (2) During the heating period, the heat–electricity ratio of biomass cogeneration is positively related to the difference between indoor and outdoor temperatures, while during the non-heating period, the ratio is stable. (3) The total capacity of biomass cogeneration estimated based on the age structure of the local population (Method A) may not be consistent with that estimated based on the per-capita energy consumption (Method B). As the total energy consumption varies in a parabolic pattern with the average family age, the estimate yielded by Method A is smaller than that yielded by Method B if the average family age is smaller than 35 or larger than 73; the two methods yield similar estimates if the average family age falls in the range of 35–73.

Demand side management opportunities, framework, and implications for sustainable development in resource-rich countries: Case study Qatar

Abstract Over the last decades, global consumption of energy and environmental resources have been rapidly increasing due to advances in the production and transportation of goods, as well as reduced barriers to global trade markets. This trend raised sustainable consumption issues because of inefficient and wasteful use of resources, especially in resource-rich countries with high purchasing power and subsidized tariffs offered to residents. It is also well-known that resources abundance tends to lower financial development and limit productivity growth and social development. On the other hand, there is a growing acceptance that supply-side policies need to be complemented by demand-side management to support sustainable cleaner production and remedy aforementioned adverse impacts. In this study, we present the results of an investigation on demand-side management (DSM) opportunities and a framework developed for Qatar as a representative of an emerging resource-rich countries and discuss implications for cleaner production. The rationale behind is that Qatar is a commodity-dependent developing country, who, during the last five years, has experienced a population growth of 35%, and an increase in electricity and water demand of 46% and 35%, respectively. Similarly, during the same period, the national vehicle fleet has grown by more than twofold. These figures have ranked Qatar at the top of the per-capita energy, carbon, and water consumption list in the world and increased environmental vulnerability and reduced climate resilience. To that end, the objectives of this study are to: (1) construct a DSM framework tailored to the needs of resource-rich country like Qatar from economic, social, environmental, and technical aspects; (2) present, analyze, and discuss the results of a survey that reveals the perceptions, attitudes, and responses of local residents towards the applicability of DSM policies; and (3) discuss methods and solutions to achieve cleaner energy consumption. The conducted survey covered electricity, water, and transportation sectors and showed that residents have low awareness about their consumption habits, but they have high willingness to reduce their consumption levels. In the last section, we present the survey results and discussions as a reference for policy-makers to promote the most promising DSM options in Qatar. To the best of authors' knowledge, this is the first survey-based study conducted in the Gulf Cooperation Council region where a significant portion of world's oil and natural gas resources are extracted. Therefore, the results could provide insights to other resource-rich countries with similar characteristics to devise more efficient policies for promoting welfare-enhancing and sustainable consumption behavior.

Energy consumption and carbon footprint accounting of urban and rural residents in Beijing through Consumer Lifestyle Approach

Household carbon emissions are major contributors to global emissions that is increasing recognized. In China, approximately 20 million rural populations transfer to the urban areas annually, which results in a lot of new infrastructure construction and consumer requirements. This paper quantifies the numbers and trends of urban and rural resident on energy use and carbon footprint in Beijing from 1996 to 2011 by analysis of Consumer Lifestyle Approach (CLA) and carbon footprint. It provides a better understanding of complete energy consumption and carbon emissions profile in Beijing. The results show that for the Beijing residents, when direct and indirect energy consumption and CO2 emissions are taken into account, the total household energy consumption proportion compared to the city increases from 22.7% to 59.2%, and the total household CO2 emissions proportion increases from 32.2% to 68.8% in the research period. In the urbanization process, total energy consumption and carbon emissions of Beijing urban residents are significantly higher than those of rural residents. However, the transformation of a rural Beijing resident into an urban Beijing resident would not create a large difference between urban and rural areas in the per-capita energy consumption and per-capita carbon footprint. Results are assessed with respect to the available scientific literature, as well as potential available technological and policy solutions. Since the implementation that different policy instruments can mitigate carbon emissions, governments are gradually combining policy measures for the same technology. The results in this paper may help promote alternative consumption strategies in household sector which could entail more reasonable resource distribution and effective reduction of both urban and rural environmental influences.

Driving forces underlying sub-national carbon dioxide emissions within the household sector and implications for the Paris Agreement targets in Japan

This study investigated insights into reducing energy-related CO2 emissions in households by examining individual socio-economic drivers at a sub-national level. Specifically, the logarithmic mean Divisia index technique was used to decompose CO2 emission trends into six drivers in all 47 prefectures of Japan during the period from 1990 to 2015. Drivers included the change in the number of households (household effect), distribution of households (distribution effect), household size (size effect), per-capita household energy consumption (consumption effect), household energy choice (choice effect), and sectoral CO2 emission intensity (intensity effect). The results showed that, in contrast to size and the distribution effects, the number of households had a positive, significant effect on CO2 emissions, indicating that recent demographic trends are responsible for the increase in CO2 emissions observed in most of the prefectures during the study period. With regard to effects related to consumption and choice, CO2 emissions due to changes in lifestyle dropped in only seven prefectures and reductions due to changes in sectoral energy choice were seen in only two prefectures in 2015. The intensity effect boosted the emissions of these prefectures the most in 2015 because of the shutdown of nuclear power plants due to the Great East Japan Earthquake. Further, we identified those prefectures that needed to reduce their per-capita energy consumption level in order to attain the reduction targets for household CO2 emissions in 2030 from 2015, given projected changes in demographic trends and recent and projected emission intensities. In order to achieve reductions in total CO2 emissions in line with the Paris Agreement, it is important to prioritize national and local policy interventions for the transfer of new household energy technologies, upgrade household appliances, and encourage people to limit energy consumption in light of the differences in these key drivers in each prefecture.

2259 - Funding Transportation for Prosperity Sustainability & Equity

Studies have shown that urban sprawl creates auto-dependency, contributes to crash deaths and injuries, sedentary lifestyles and increases per-capita energy consumption and associated air pollution. Sprawl also increases impervious surfaces (roofs, streets, parking lots, driveways, etc.) which exacerbate stormwater runoff and water pollution. Some extol compact development (“smart growth”) as the antidote. But, if smart growth is so “smart,” how come there's so much “dumb growth” – and what can be done about it? Part of the answer lies in the economics of infrastructure. Infrastructure is created to facilitate development. Yet, if it is well-designed and well-executed, resulting increases in nearby land prices can chase development away to cheaper but more remote sites. When infrastructure is extended to these remote sites, the cycle begins again, with development being chased even farther away. Rising land prices also thwart community improvement. Perhaps there's a distressed community that would benefit from better roads or transit. If the improvements are successful, land prices and rents rise. Intended beneficiaries may be displaced. Tax dollars, spent to help the poor, end up enriching affluent landowners instead. The ability of private landowners to appropriate publicly-created land values is the fuel behind land speculation – a parasitic activity that inflates land prices and contributes to these perverse outcomes. This presentation will demonstrate that returning publicly-created land values to the public and recycling them for public purposes reduces land prices. Where this has been tried, infrastructure becomes financially self-sustaining (at least to a greater degree than typical). Additionally, this approach promotes compact infill development, enhancing opportunities for walking, biking, transit and other forms of active transportation. Funding infrastructure from publicly-created land values facilitates reducing taxes on privately-created building values. This tax shift makes both buildings and land more affordable for residents and businesses. The end result is more jobs in construction and related fields, including energy conservation retrofits to existing buildings. This often overlooked and/or misunderstood source of transportation funding has been used successfully in Washington, DC during the 1800s, regarding the first-time paving of streets and the funding of the Connecticut Avenue Streetcar. Other examples of successful implementation include Pittsburgh, Harrisburg and San Francisco after the earthquake of 1906. Hong Kong uses this approach to make its public transit system economically viable. The presentation will briefly discuss the economics of land value creation and recycling, but emphasize real-world success stories whereby land value recycling provides more equitable, resilient, healthy and sustainable development.

Socio-Demographic Drivers of Residential Co2 Emissions in the 47 Prefectures of Japan

This study examined which socio-economic drivers contributed to energy-related CO2 emissions in Japanese households in all 47 prefectures since 1990. We adopted the logarithmic mean Divisia index technique to decompose the prefectural trends in CO2 emissions during the period 1990-2013 into six drivers: change in the number of households (household effect), distribution of households (distribution effect), household size (size effect), per-capita household energy consumption (consumption effect), household energy choice (choice effect), and sectoral CO2 emission intensity (technology effect). The results showed that, in contrast to the size effect, the household effect and the distribution effect both had positive and significant effects on CO2 emissions, indicating that these recent demographic trends were responsible for the increase in CO2 emissions observed in most of the prefectures during the period. Regarding the consumption effect and the choice effect, i.e., changes in CO2 emissions due to changes in lifestyle and technology, only ten and seven prefectures reduced their CO2 emissions in 2013, respectively. Thus, in order to further reduce CO2 emissions through these key drivers among prefectures, it is considered necessary to prioritize the transfer of new household energy technologies, upgrade household appliances, and encourage people to limit energy consumption.

Sustainable chemical processing and energy-carbon dioxide management: Review of challenges and opportunities

Energy is the driving force for growth and per-capita energy consumption is a key parameter for the development of a nation. Carbon dioxide emissions from burning of fossil fuels are the main concerns for global warming. This paper presents a brief review of the available energy sources, CO2-emissions and management, and sustainable chemical processing, where energy consumption, CO2-emission, as well as economics and environmental impacts are considered. Not all available energy sources have been utilized efficiently, while, the energy source causing the largest emission of CO2 is being used in the largest amount. The CO2 management is therefore looking at “curing” the problem rather than “preventing” it. Examples highlighting the synthesis, design and analysis of sustainable chemical processing are presented in the areas of utilization of biomass-based energy-chemicals production, carbon-capture and utilization to produce value added chemicals, and retrofit design of energy intensive chemical processes with significant reduction of energy-consumption are presented. These examples highlight issues of energy-sustainable design, energy-CO2 neutral design, energy-retrofit design, and energy-process intensification. Finally, some perspectives on the status and future directions of carbon dioxide management are outlined.

Solarising tropical Africa’s rural homes to sustainably overcome energy poverty

At less than 30% electrification, Tropical Africa is the most energy-poor electrified region of the world. At home level, the annual per-capita electric energy consumption ranges between 0 and 150 kWh in rural areas, where 83% of the population reside. This is well below the 250 kWh recommended by the International Energy Agency (IEA) as the threshold for exiting rural ‘Energy Poverty’. Some governments have tried to extend the grid to such areas but these efforts have not yielded much. The approaches of rural electrification – as is being done now have therefore failed – and they may not be able to electrify every home in the countries concerned. An alternative approach promoting stand-alone photovoltaic (PV) and other solar powered heat and mass transfer systems at home level is proposed. An example of the approach in a village home in rural Uganda, East Africa is given. It is estimated that the combined unit energy cost over the systems’ lifespan would be just about US 3 cents. Health, Education, and Sustainability in all its forms would be greatly improved. The main recommendation is for policy makers to adopt this approach for rural homes while sparing grid supply only for commercial and industrial activities.