What matters in residential energy consumption: evidence from France

Abstract

Given objectives set by countries to realize energy-savings and decrease greenhouse gas emissions, an understanding of the main factors driving household energy consumption is crucial for the formulation of efficient policy measures. Our objective is to identify the main determinants of households energy consumption. The model incorporates a discrete/continuous decision framework, which allows for interactions between decisions on the heating system (the discrete choice) and decisions on the consumption of energy (the continuous choice). We have three main contributions.First, we explore the role of households' socio-economic characteristics vs. technical properties of dwelling in explaining energy consumption. Second, we identify some of the main sources of energy conservation in the housing sector. Third, we estimate price-elasticity and income-elasticity in the French housing sector at a micro-level.Results show that the intensity of energy used per m² is almost completely determined by the technical properties of the dwelling and by the climate. The role of sociodemographic variables is particularly weak. This means that the challenge to environmental policies is to encourage households to undertake renovations.

Improvement of a Global High-Resolution Ammonia Emission Inventory for Combustion and Industrial Sources with New Data from the Residential and Transportation Sectors

“…A typical example of source profile influence can be observed in Southeast Asia, where heating activities are not required at all, but biomass emissions are dominated by cooking fuels . This was also true for France …”

“…Residential sources were the largest contributors to emissions in Asia and Europe due to high population densities. The highest contribution from transportation occurred in West and Central Asia, and residential emissions also ranked first in Europe, where approximately a quarter of the total energy consumption occurred in this sector. , The contribution from industry was relatively high in East Asia, including China. Such detailed source information can provide valuable information for those involved in formulating abatement strategies.…”

Understanding the spectrum of residential energy-saving behaviours: French evidence using disaggregated data

“…It has been in the scope of several studies such as Labandeira et al (2005) regarding prices; Cayla et al (2010) or Cayla et al (2011) regarding revenues;and Parti and Parti (1980), Dubin and McFadden (1984), Baker et al (1989), Nesbakken (2001), Bernard et al (1996) or Branch (1993) for cross analysis. As reviewed by Risch and Salmon (2013), the energy price elasticity estimations vary from -0.2 to -1.14 while the energy income elasticity is estimated to be lower, ranging between 0.01 and 0.13. Therefore our findings on price and revenue effect on energysaving behaviours are consistent with the important difference between energy price and energy income elasticities.…”

Energy Consumption in the French Residential Sector: How Much do Individual Preferences Matter?

“…In using these approaches, researchers assume the existence of implicit choices and preferences in terms of home characteristics or energy appliances and their effects on energy consumption. In using discrete-continuous models, researchers also assume that appliance or thermal equipment choices and consumption choice are bound (Dubin and McFadden, 1984;Risch and Salmon, 2017;Vaage, 2000) and use these models to address selectivity biases in data sets with endogenously partitioned observational units (Frondel, et al, 2016). These models are thus often used in the field of energy consumption due to the interactions and endogeneity between independent explanatory variables.…”