Study Of The Trend Of Rural Domestic Energy Consumption

Rural domestic energy composition reflects farmer’s living standard and regional ecologicalenvironment, is important in the construction of socialist new countryside. In some developed areas，with the rising of farmers’ living standard, large amount of straws have been burned in field andnon-renewable fossil energy consumption increased quickly, causing waste of resources and pollution ofenvironment.. How to transform rural domestic energy into efficient, clean and environment-friendlyenergy is imperative. In this paper, Tancheng county, Shandong Province was studied as an examplethrough questionnaire investigation. The rural domestic energy consumption status and changecharacters’ in Tancheng, the factors leading to these changes and the way of change were substantiallystudied.In the past, the availability and affordability were considered highly in the choice of energyresources. Before1980s, straw were thus the main energy supply in rural areas as their low cost andhandy acquirement, taking up to90%of the total energy consumption. The sources of domestic energyare diverse nowadays. Solar power, electricity, coal, liquefied petroleum gas and biogas have becomethe major supplies of rural domestic energy in Tancheng County. From2006to2010, the averagepersonal energy consumption increased from295.2kgce to318.9kgce, about8%. The contribution ofdifferent type of energy sources in this change were different. Conventional straw and coalconsumption showed gradually decreasing, the ratio in the total energy consumption by straw andfirewood have been minimized, average personal coal consumption decreased from95kgce to46.7kgceannually. While the consumption of clean commercial energy keeps increasing. From2006to2010,electricity increased from59.2kgce to89.3kgce, solar power from56.3kgce to107.3kgce, liquidpetroleum gas from18.9kgce to29.4kgce, and biogas from1.9kgce to4.0kgce in the investigatedarea. The most popular energy consumption combination is: electricity plus solar energy, liquefiedpetroleum gas and coal.The change in energy consumption structure are effected by both the characteristics of energysources and social factors. Price, easy acquirement and stable supply effect the acceptance of an energyuse. The price of fire coal had increased from0.25yuan in2006to0.5yuan a pice. Liquid petroleum gaswas started to use in early1980s, the price increased from40yuan to90yuan per can. While the price ofelectricity kept stable or even lower as the improvement of countryside network at the same time. Soelectricity replaced coal and liquid petroleum gas in cooking greatly. But coal was still used widely forheating in winter time as there is no suitable replace energy and still lower relative cost. Biogas, in spiteof low cost in use, the high cost in construction of methane-generating pools and the following intensivelabour input in maintaining, expense in raw materials collection and the weak gas supply ability inwater time limited its widely use.Regional economic development, average income level, source of income, government guidance,family size and education level determine the household’s domestic energy consumption level and structure. Higher income level (normally with higher education level) and small family size (2-3persons) tend to choose clean and high efficient solar power and electricity, aging people and largerfamily (more than4person) still keep using a certain amount of straw and coal for cooking. Biogas areused only in households involving poultry and swain industry as the free acquirement of raw materialsand the need of animal waste treatment, while those household mainly income come from crop plantingand working outside rarely use biogas.The general trend in energy consumption was that liquefied petroleum gas replaces straw andfirewood, then electricity replaces coal, and electricity and biogas replace liquefied petroleum gas.Some features appeared in the energy consumption changes in Tancheng County. The recent increase inenergy consumption mainly comes from the nontraditional energy such as solar energy, electricity andbiogas. These increase are mainly used for air-condition, amusements and traveling, therefore theincrease in these consumption will keep increasing with the enhancement of individual income andincrease in labour cost. The realization of increased energy supply mainly relies on the externalnon-renewable energy sources such as electricity, canned gas and oil. Large amount of renewable localbiomass are not fully used. In Tancheng County, there are9.754million ton of straws, can produceabout of2.439x108m3of methane a year through straw gasification technology. The annual yield ofanimal waste are49.21nillion ton, capable of producing2.93x107m3.of biogas. Accounting with2m3ofdaily personal consumption, the sum up of these two resources could satisfy a whole year of energyrequirement in the county. The huge potential of renewable resources now is not explored efficiently.The government policy and financial support in the construction of small methane-generating pits seemsnot suitable for the changed countryside situation as the small family size, not enough labour remainedin countryside and the complex procedure in the maintaining of the biogas facilities, causing economicwaste. Therefore, some suggestions were proposed for the optimasition of countryside enegy supplystrategies:Government public investment should keep incline to use renewable resources in countryside, sothat to initiate and accelerate the construction and development of renewable energy. Suitable strategiesshould be made according to the local economic and social situation. The construction of family-basedbiogas facility should be replaced by village-based centralized gas supply system. High efficient strawgasification technology should be promoted in industrialized scale, avoiding the possible waste in labour,material and government financial input. Solar enegy should be encouraged to be used in building,renovating and extending house in countryside. Small town construction should be encouraged so as torealize the centralized and industrialized energy supply, increase the use efficiency of energy. The newenergy management in countryside should be operated through marketing, industrialization andsocialization, thus providing long and improved service system.