Analysis of household energy consumption and related CO₂ emissions in the disregarded villages of Lijiang City, China

Abstract

Energy is one of the most important elements required for poverty alleviation and socioeconomic development, and it has a particularly strong impact on households in rural areas. An extensive survey on household energy consumption patterns that interrelates socioeconomic and demographic factors was conducted in the disregarded villages of Lijiang City by using the stratified random sampling technique for 120 households. This study focuses on household energy consumption and the related carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions in the study area. Firewood, biogas, and electricity were identified as the main energy sources of the rural households. This study demonstrates that 100% of the households use firewood, 52% use biogas, and 95% use electricity as fuel types. On average, each household consumed 1752 kg of firewood, 280 m³ of biogas, and 392 kWh of electricity annually. All households generated an annual average amount of CO₂ emissions of 3851 kg, of which 85.08% come from firewood, 7.66% from biogas, and 7.26% from electricity. Family size, income, and educational level were found to be the major factors that influence CO₂ emissions. The results of this study may be useful in explaining the energy consumption characteristics in the rural areas of Lijiang City and are expected to be useful in policy formulation for energy consumption and environmental protection.

Keywords:

• household energy
• energy consumption
• firewood
• carbon dioxide emissions
• rural areas

Acknowledgement

This research was supported by the Ministry of Environmental Protection of the People's Republic of China (201009055).

Notes

1. The National Development and Reform Commission did not provide the weight coefficients. This study used equal weights to simplify the calculations.

2. The households have a mean annual income of 11,920 RMB, with the minimum of 1440 RMB and maximum of 30,000 RMB.