Rebound Effect Of Residential Electricity Consumption

The dual constraints of energy and environment have increasingly become a prominent challenge for China’s green development.As the second largest energy consumption sector after the industrial sector,the energy consumption of the residential sector and its growth are receiving increasing academic attention.With the advancement of urbanization and the alleviation of rural energy poverty,electricity consumption has become the main species of energy consumption in the residential sector.In order to ensure the fair use of electricity and promote the conservation of electricity,China has changed from a single form of residential electricity price to a segmented price based on the electricity consumed by users since 2012,and has implemented the residential ladder electricity price policy nationwide.Although “energy efficiency standards and labels” are generally implemented in the field of household appliances,and the development and application of energy-saving technologies have effectively reduced the energy consumption of household appliances,the electricity consumption of the residential sector has maintained a rapid growth trend.The existence of the electricity rebound effect has offset the energy saving effect of improving the energy efficiency of household appliances to a certain extent.Considering the importance and growth potential of the residential sector in the field of electricity consumption in China,exploring the rebound effect of residential electricity consumption and estimating its level can provide theoretical support and decision-making reference for evaluating the effectiveness of residential ladder electricity pricing policy in China and promoting energy conservation and emission reduction in the residential sector.Based on panel data of 287 cities at prefecture level and above in China from 2005 to 2015,this paper expanded the standard energy demand frontier model by adding correction factor(1-RE),and estimated the rebound effect and electricity energy efficiency of China’s residential sector by using the extended model of standard energy demand frontier model.The results of maximum likelihood estimation show that all variables have passed the significance test.In the frontier equation,the actual electricity price,the actual per capita GDP,the total population at the end of the year and the cooling degree day are all positively correlated with the electricity consumption of the residential sector,while the heating degree day,the family size and the price of household appliances without CPI influence are negatively correlated with the electricity consumption of the residential sector.In the rebound effect equation,the real electricity price excluding CPI is positively correlated with the rebound effect of residential sector electricity consumption,while the real per capita GDP and household size are negatively correlated with the rebound effect of residential sector electricity consumption.According to the method of Orea et al.(2015),the average rebound effect and average energy efficiency of electricity consumption in China’s residential sector from 2005 to 2015 were 32.06% and 0.9174,respectively.On the whole,from 2005 to 2015,the rebound effect of electricity consumption in China’s residential sector fluctuates between 20% and 40%,which indicates that the effect of the residential ladder electricity price policy implemented in China is limited.For further regional analysis,according to the method of Liu(2015),this paper divides China into four economic regions: economically developed regions,more developed regions,less developed regions and economically poor regions.The results show that the electricity rebound effect in the economically poor areas is the smallest,but the energy efficiency level of electricity needs to be improved;the other three types of areas have larger rebound effects,and the residents’ electricity consumption demand is significantly affected by temperature differences.Therefore,this article puts forward the following suggestions: First,improve the residential ladder electricity price policy to help the construction of ecological civilization;Second,promote energy-saving appliances and improve the utilization efficiency of electricity resource;Third,create a green electricity society atmosphere and guide the formation of green consumption habits.