Structural Evolution of Household Energy Consumption: A China Study

Sustainable energy production and consumption is one of the issues for the sustainable development strategy in China. As China’s economic development paradigm shifts, household energy consumption (HEC) has become a focus of achieving national goals of energy efficiency and greenhouse gas reduction. The information entropy model and LMDI model were employed in this study in order to analyse the structural evolution of HEC, as well as its associated critical factors. The results indicate that the information entropy of HEC increased gradually, and coal will be reduced by clean energies, such as natural gas and liquefied petroleum gas. The information entropy tends to stabilize and converge due to rapid urbanization. Therefore, from the perspective of environmental protection and natural resource conservation, the structure of household energy consumption will be optimized. This study revealed that residents’ income level is one of the most critical factors for the increase of energy consumption, while the energy intensity is the only driving force for the reduction of HEC. The accumulated contribution of these two factors to the HEC is 240.53% OPEN ACCESS Sustainability2015, 7 3920 and −161.75%, respectively. It is imperative to improve the energy efficiency in the residential sector. Recommendations are provided to improve the energy efficiency-related technologies, as well as the standards for the sustainable energy strategy.