Energy Conservation Evaluation Of Increasing Block Tariffs Policy For Household Gas Based On A Regression Discontinuity-Difference In Difference Approach

China's energy supply has long been dominated by coal,making China become the largest greenhouse gas emissions country.Facing the problems of climate warming and environmental pollution,natural gas has become a new choice for urbanization and industrial energy transformation.Residents' gas consumption is China's second largest natural gas consumption sector except for manufacturing.In 2012,the National Development and Reform Commission proposed reform measures for the residential increasing block tariffs system,requiring that all cities which have access to natural gas should establish increasing block tariffs policy for household gas by the end of 2015.The purpose of the increasing block tariffs policy is to guide residents to save gas on the premise of ensuring their basic gas demand.At present,the increasing block tariffs policy has been implemented for more than four years,the evaluation of the energy-saving effect of the policy is a practical issue that deserves attention.Based on the fuzzy regression discontinuity design framework,the difference-indifference model is used to evaluate energy-saving effect of the increasing block tariffs policy by using the bimonthly natural gas consumption data set,micro-investigation data set and climate data set from January 2014 to October 2018 in Hefei City.Firstly,the natural gas consumption bill data sets are grouped according to different bandwidth ranges around the second(third)gas price,and a sensitivity test is performed.Secondly,the heterogeneity analysis is carried out according to the user type and gas consumption period.The robustness of the experimental results is discussed based on the balance panel regression and falsification test.Finally,we use micro-surveys to obtain data on household characteristics and explore the impact of household characteristics factors on energy efficiency.The results show that: 1)The current gas price policy in Hefei has a significant energy saving effect,especially for households facing third block gas prices.2)The consumption of gas by residents of different user types and different periods is obviously different.3)The division of the blocks of the gas price policy better reflects the coordination of meeting the basic needs of residents,energy saving and fairness,but the policy effect is lagging behind.4)The influence of climatic conditions and household micro-characteristic factors on residents' gas consumption behavior cannot be ignored.