Study on affecting factors of residential energy consumption in urban and rural Jiangsu

The purpose of this paper is to study the difference of residential energy consumption between urban and rural Jiangsu areas. The main results are as follows. The residential energy consumption structures in both urban and rural regions have shifted from being predominantly coal based to a multitier structure. Along with the development of urbanization, the gap in residential energy consumption per capita between urban and rural became narrowed over the study period. The space energy efficiency effect plays an important role in decreasing urban residential energy consumption at the aggregate level. However, the population effect and floor area effect are the most stable factor increasing urban residential energy consumption. With regard to rural residential energy consumption, the space energy efficiency effect and the floor area effect are the largest contributor to energy demand over the study period. The population effect plays an important role in decreasing rural residential energy consumption over 1996-2011. However, the contribution from the energy mix effect was negligible during the study period.