Energy consumption in the transport and domestic sectors: A household-level comparison between capital cities of Japan, China, and Indonesia

Household energy consumption comes from both in-home and out-of-home activities (i.e., in both the passenger transport and domestic sectors), which may not be independent of each other. An activity may be associated with one or more end uses. This chapter compares household energy consumption in three major Asian capital cities, including Tokyo in Japan, Beijing in China, and Jakarta in Indonesia. Data were collected in 2009 via a questionnaire survey, where about 1000 households participated in the survey in each capital area. A multiple discrete-continuous choice model is built to jointly represent whether to use a certain type of energy and how much energy to consume, by using transport-related attributes, household life cycle stages, and end-use attributes, and other factors as explanatory variables. Modeling analysis results suggest that household energy consumption behavior and its influential factors vary with energy types across cities. Larger influences of transport-related attributes are confirmed, where person-based transport-related attributes are more influential. Interdependencies between transport and domestic sectors suggest the importance of cross-sectoral policymaking in reducing energy consumption. Various policy implications are derived.