Abstract

The impact of income on the household energy consumption and behavior-Analysis basing on the urban of Beijing

Author(s): Yanmei LI , Jianfeng ZHAO

As the capital of China, the industrialization and urbanization of Beijing has been in the forefront of the nation, which has entered the late stage. The proportion of the industrial sector has declined in the energy consumption sectors, while the household sector has gradually increased. Therefore, the focus of energy saving would gradually shift to the household sector. While the household energy consumption behaviors of the residents with different income levels are different, the policy measures guiding energy saving behaviors should be varied too. Firstly, basing on the statistical data collected, the relationships between the Beijing urban residents' income and household energy consumption were analyzed using the co-integration. The results show that the higher the income of urban household, the larger one’s household energy consumption. Then, a survey on the Beijing urban households of different income has been conducted and then the questionnaires were analyzed. The results show that there are significant differences between the higher and the lower income households in energy consumption behavior. The higher-income households tend to buy high energy-consuming products.