Per capita energy consumption for living, work, transport and other activities in cities in the Keihanshin Metropolitan Region, Japan

Abstract

In this paper, authors estimated per capita energy consumption of residential, commercial, and passenger transportation sectors of the Keihanshin Metropolitan Region, Japan. This energy consumption can be seen as energy used for living, work, transport and other social activities. A bottom-up model was developed for each sector and the estimated energy consumption was allotted to persons who initiate energy consumption in their house and commercial buildings and for transport in order to analyse the structure determining per capita energy consumption. The estimated per capita energy consumption ranges from 28 to 38 GJ/year·person among cities and sub-regions in the Keihanshin Metropolitan Region. The result of this study also revealed that the structure determining per capita energy is complicated as factors increasing or decreasing energy consumption co-exist and areas located in sub-urban areas have both highest and lowest per capita energy consumptions.

Keywords:

• per capita energy consumption
• urban form
• residential sector
• commercial sector
• passenger transportation sector
• bottom-up model

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by a Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research, No. 22360237, and Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (B), No. 23780550, from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science.