A new approach to measuring the rebound effect associated to energy efficiency improvements: An application to the US residential energy demand

This paper brings attention to the fact that the energy demand frontier model introduced by Filippini and Hunt (2011, 2012) is closely connected to the measurement of the so-called rebound effect associated with improvements in energy efficiency. In particular, we show that their model implicitly imposes a zero rebound effect, which contradicts most of the available empirical evidence on this issue. We relax this restrictive assumption through the modelling of a rebound-effect function that mitigates or intensifies the effect of an efficiency improvement on energy consumption. We illustrate our model with an empirical application that aims to estimate a US frontier residential aggregate energy demand function using panel data for 48 states over the period 1995 to 2011. Average values of the rebound effect in the range of 56–80% are found. Therefore, policymakers should be aware that most of the expected energy reduction from efficiency improvements may not be achieved.     

Ant colony optimization approach to estimate energy demand of Turkey

This paper attempts to shed light on the determinants of energy demand in Turkey. Energy demand model is first proposed using the ant colony optimization (ACO) approach. It is multi-agent systems in which the behavior of each ant is inspired by the foraging behavior of real ants to solve optimization problem. ACO energy demand estimation (ACOEDE) model is developed using population, gross domestic product (GDP), import and export. All equations proposed here are linear and quadratic. Quadratic_ACOEDE provided better-fit solution due to fluctuations of the economic indicators. The ACOEDE model plans the energy demand of Turkey until 2025 according to three scenarios. The relative estimation errors of the ACOEDE model are the lowest when they are compared with the Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources (MENR) projection.     

Estimation of global rebound effect caused by energy efficiency improvement

Rebound effect refers to the phenomenon that the actual reduction in energy use and emissions is less than the expected reduction caused by an energy efficiency improvement due to induced behavior adjustment of relevant economic agents. This article studies the global rebound effects on energy use and related emissions caused by an energy efficiency improvement. We adopt a global computable general equilibrium (CGE) model to design a scenario of energy efficiency improvement, which is compared to a business-as-usual (BAU) scenario to identify the global rebound effect. Our results show very large rebound effect on energy use (70%) and related emissions (90%) in 2040 at the global level with regional and sectoral differences. Important determinants, among others, are induced labor movement among economic activities and labor supply, and substitution elasticity between energy and other goods. Labor mobility has a marked impact on both rebound effects and on fuel mix. The global rebound effect is still considerable even with a low substitution elasticity between energy and other goods. The effect of capital accumulation over time contributes marginally to the global rebound effect as it is utilized to promote economic growth by using energy input more efficiently.     

Genetic algorithm approach to estimate transport energy demand in Turkey

Transport energy modeling is a subject of current interest among transport engineers and scientists concerned with problems of sustainable transport. Transport energy planning is not possible without a reasonable knowledge of past and present energy consumption and likely future demands. In this study, three forms of the energy demand equations are developed in order to improve transport energy demand estimation efficiency for future projections based on genetic algorithm (GA) notion. The Genetic Algorithm Transport Energy Demand Estimation (GATEDE) model is developed using population, gross domestic product and vehicle-km. All equations proposed here are linear and non-linear, of which one is linear, second is exponential and third is quadratic. The quadratic form of the GATEDE model provided better-fit solution to the observed data and can be used with a high correlation coefficient for Turkey's future transport energy projections. It is expected that this study will be helpful in developing highly applicable and productive planning for transport energy policies. The GATEDE gives transport energy demand in comparison with the other transport energy demand projections. The GATEDE model plans the sectoral energy demand of Turkey until 2020.     

Measuring energy rebound effect in the Chinese economy: An economic accounting approach

Estimating the magnitude of China's economy-wide rebound effect has attracted much attention in recent years. Most existing studies measure the rebound effect through the additional energy consumption from technological progress. However, in general technological progress is not equivalent to energy efficiency improvement. Consequently, their estimation may be misleading. To overcome the limitation, this paper develops an alternative approach for estimating energy rebound effect. Based on the proposed approach, China's economy-wide energy rebound effect is revisited. The empirical result shows that during the period 1981–2011 the rebound effects in China are between 30% and 40%, with an average value of 34.3%.     

Economy-wide estimates of energy rebound effect: Evidence from China's provinces

The ongoing debate on the magnitude of China's economy-wide energy rebound effect (RE) entails further investigations not only with more details, but also with more credible methods. In this study, a modified two-stage approach, which could avoid methodological issues regarding RE estimation, is applied to estimate macroeconomic RE with a data panel of 30 provinces in China during the period 1997–2015. In particular, in order to comprehensively measure energy efficiency, we construct a dynamic energy efficiency indicator which considers not only the static efficiency of energy use but also the technical change regarding energy usage. Using dynamic panel data models, we estimate the elasticity of energy consumption with respect to energy efficiency which directly links to the measurement of RE. The short-run and long-run estimates of RE are reported, and the 95% confidence interval was computed for each sample based on the nonparametric bootstrap method to further analyze the macroeconomic RE of different regions. Results indicate that the average RE of all provinces is 88.55% in the short run, and the average long-run RE is 77.50%; the RE in the developed eastern region continuously decreased, while RE in the western region increased to be the largest during the research period.     

Technology gap and China's regional energy efficiency: A parametric metafrontier approach

This paper analyzes the energy efficiency of China's 30 administrative regions during the period from 1997 to 2010. Most existing studies ignored the variation of production technologies among regions in China. Taking this factor into account, we introduce a parametric metafrontier approach based on the Shephard energy distance function. For further analysis, regions in China are divided into three groups using cluster analysis. We find that the regions in group 1 (mainly the regions in the east area of China) not only have the highest energy efficiency score, but also take the lead in terms of technology gap ratio. Meanwhile, due to their backward technology levels, the average energy efficiency score of the regions in group 3 (mainly the regions in the west area of China) is particularly low. Moreover, the pooled estimation, which ignores the technology gap among the groups, tends to underestimate the energy efficiency.     

Empirical estimates of the direct rebound effect: A review

Improvements in energy efficiency make energy services cheaper, and therefore encourage increased consumption of those services. This so-called direct rebound effect offsets the energy savings that may otherwise be achieved. This paper provides an overview of the theoretical and methodological issues relevant to estimating the direct rebound effect and summarises the empirical estimates that are currently available. The paper focuses entirely on household energy services, since this is where most of the evidence lies and points to a number of potential sources of bias that may lead the effect to be overestimated. For household energy services in the OECD, the paper concludes that the direct rebound effect should generally be less than 30%.     

Energy rebound effect in China's Industry: An aggregate and disaggregate analysis

Considering the crucial role of industrial sectors in energy conservation, this paper investigates the impact of output growth on energy consumption in China's industrial sectors with an index decomposition model and the energy rebound effect in the industrial sectors with a panel data model using the annual data during 1994–2012. The empirical results indicate that: first, industrial output growth is proved to be the major factor in promoting industrial energy consumption, while energy intensity reduction and structure shifts across industrial sub-sectors play the dominant roles in slowing down industrial energy consumption. Second, there does exist energy rebound effect in China's aggregate Industry, which ranges from 20% to 76% during 1995–2012 (or 39% on average). In particular, the energy rebound effect in Manufacturing is relatively smaller during the sample period (i.e., 28% on average). Finally, the energy rebound effect in both China's aggregate Industry and Manufacturing exhibit an overall decreasing trend over time.     

Interactions between renewable energy policy and renewable energy industrial policy: A critical analysis of China's policy approach to renewable energies

This paper analyzes China's policy approach to renewable energies and assesses how effectively China has met the ideal of appropriate interactions between renewable energy policy and renewable energy industrial policy. First we briefly discuss the interactions between these two policies. Then we outline China's key renewable energy and renewable industrial policies and find that China's government has well recognized the need for this policy interaction. After that, we study the achievements and problems in China's wind and solar PV sector during 2005–2012 and argue that China's policy approach to renewable energies has placed priority first on developing a renewable energy manufacturing industry and only second on renewable energy itself, and it has not effectively met the ideal of appropriate interactions between renewable energy policy and renewable energy industrial policy. Lastly, we make an in-depth analysis of the three ideas underlying this policy approach, that is, the green development idea, the low-carbon leadership idea and indigenous innovation idea. We conclude that Chinas' policy approach to renewable energies needs to enhance the interactions between renewable energy policy and renewable energy industrial policy. The paper contributes to a deeper understanding of China's policy strategy toward renewable energies.     

An improved photographic method to estimate the shading effect of obstructions

A new photographic method is presented to evaluate the shading effects of obstructions on surfaces exposed to the sun. The method overcomes the difficulties caused by the need to accurately describe the surrounding objects to estimate the shading effects by means of the usual tools that use the spatial reconstruction of obstructions or cylindrical or polar suncharts. The photographs of the surrounding objects are used as the background on which the solar disc is depicted at the various hours of the day. In this way it is easily detectable if the sun is visible from the place where the photographs were taken or if the surrounding obstructions obscure the sun.In spite of the complex mathematical background of the new method, the practical application of the procedure is very simple, and only requires the measurements of three angles for each photograph. The procedure permits to verify the suitability of a generic site for solar exploitation; its main benefit is the simplicity of use and the transparency of the obtained results. This method is particularly useful to evaluate the technical feasibility of small solar systems installed on the buildings of densely urbanised cities.The accuracy of the method was tested by performing an experimental verification in the field. For this purpose, the sun was photographed at different hours of the day. The photographed solar discs and the calculated sun’s positions were compared. The differences between the photographed and calculated sun’s positions corresponded to small time lags that do not exceed few minutes in the worst case. To further investigate the reliability of the proposed method, the impact of image distortion, which always affects all methods that use cameras to get information about the photographed reality, was also examined.     

Rebound effect of improved energy efficiency for different energy types: A general equilibrium analysis for China

This paper explores the rebound effect of different energy types in China based on a static computable general equilibrium model. A one-off 5% energy efficiency improvement is imposed on five different types of energy, respectively, in all the 135 production sectors in China. The rebound effect is measured both on the production level and on the economy-wide level for each type of energy. The results show that improving energy efficiency of using electricity has the largest positive impact on GDP among the five energy types. Inter-fuel substitutability does not affect the macroeconomic results significantly, but long-run impact is usually greater than the short-run impact. For the exports-oriented sectors, those that are capital-intensive get big negative shock in the short run while those that are labour-intensive get hurt in the long run. There is no “backfire” effect; however, improving efficiency of using electricity can cause negative rebound, which implies that improving the energy efficiency of using electricity might be a good policy choice under China's current energy structure. In general, macro-level rebound is larger than production-level rebound. Primary energy goods show larger rebound effect than secondary energy goods. In addition, the paper points out that the policy makers in China should look at the rebound effect in the long term rather than in the short term. The energy efficiency policy would be a good and effective policy choice for energy conservation in China when it still has small inter-fuel substitution.     

Integration of solar thermal for improved energy efficiency in low-temperature-pinch industrial processes

Solar thermal systems have the potential to provide renewable industrial process heat and are especially suited for low pinch temperature processes such as those in the food, beverage, and textile sectors. When correctly integrated within an industrial process, they can provide significant progress towards both increased energy efficiency and reduction in emissions. However, the integration of renewable solar energy into industrial processes presents a challenge for existing process integration techniques due to the non-continuous nature of the supply. A thorough pinch analysis study of the industrial process, taking in to account non-continuous operating rates, should be performed to evaluate the utility demand profile. Solar collector efficiency data under variable climatic conditions should also be collected for the specific site. A systematic method of combining this information leads to improved design and an optimal operating strategy. This approach has been applied to a New Zealand milk powder plant and benefits of several integration strategies, including mass integration, are investigated. The appropriate placement of the solar heat is analogous to the placement of a hot utility source and an energy penalty will be incurred when the solar thermal system provides heat below the pinch temperature.     

Economic and environmental gains of China's fossil energy subsidies reform: A rebound effect case study with EIMO model

Energy consumption and efficiency emerged as the hottest topic in the context of China's sustainable development. Energy subsidies and “rebound effect” were closely related to this topic while few combinative studies on them with a focus on China. This paper employed a co-thinking approach, focusing on how the energy subsidies reform could mitigate the rebound effect in China, and how to achieve an “economic and environmental gains” that reduced pecuniary spending, improved the distorted energy market and reduced energy consumption simultaneously. Firstly, with price-gap approach we calculated the total energy subsidies scale of China in 2007, which amounted to582.0 billion CNY; then we detected and identified rebound effect of China energy consumption with the features. Furthermore, based on China 2007 monetary input–output table and energy flow analysis, we compiled a hybrid physical energy input and monetary output model (EIMO) to simulate the mitigation effect of subsidies reform. Results showed that removing energy subsidies would decrease ultimate demand of different economy sectors and reduce the accumulatively physical consumption of coal, oil, natural gas and electricity by 17.74, 13.47, 3.64 and 15.82 million tce, respectively. Finally we discussed relevant policy issues on China's energy subsidies reform in depth.     

Direct energy rebound effect for road passenger transport in China: A dynamic panel quantile regression approach

The transport sector appears a main energy consumer in China and plays a significant role in energy conservation. Improving energy efficiency proves an effective way to reduce energy consumption in transport sector, whereas its effectiveness may be affected by the rebound effect. This paper proposes a dynamic panel quantile regression model to estimate the direct energy rebound effect for road passenger transport in the whole country, eastern, central and western China, respectively, based on the data of 30 provinces from 2003 to 2012. The empirical results reveal that, first of all, the direct rebound effect does exist for road passenger transport and on the whole country, the short-term and long-term direct rebound effects are 25.53% and 26.56% on average, respectively. Second, the direct rebound effect for road passenger transport in central and eastern China tends to decrease, increase and then decrease again, whereas that in western China decreases and then increases, with the increasing passenger kilometers. Finally, when implementing energy efficiency policy in road passenger transport sector, the effectiveness of energy conservation in western China proves much better than that in central China overall, while the effectiveness in central China is relatively better than that in eastern China.     

Regional energy rebound effect: The impact of economy-wide and sector level energy efficiency improvement in Georgia,USA

Rebound effect is defined as the lost part of ceteris paribus energy savings from improvements on energy efficiency. In this paper, we investigate economy-wide energy rebound effects by developing a computable general equilibrium (CGE) model for Georgia, USA. The model adopts a highly disaggregated sector profile and highlights the substitution possibilities between different energy sources in the production structure. These two features allow us to better characterize the change in energy use in face of an efficiency shock, and to explore in detail how a sector-level shock propagates throughout the economic structure to generate aggregate impacts. We find that with economy-wide energy efficiency improvement on the production side, economy-wide rebound is moderate. Energy price levels fall very slightly, yet sectors respond to these changing prices quite differently in terms of local production and demand. Energy efficiency improvements in particular sectors (epicenters) induce quite different economy-wide impacts. In general, we expect large rebound if the epicenter sector is an energy production sector, a direct upstream/downstream sector of energy production sectors, a transportation sector or a sector with high production elasticity. Our analysis offers valuable insights for policy makers aiming to achieve energy conservation through increasing energy efficiency.     

Long-run elasticity of US energy demand: A process analysis approach

In 1970 the authors undertook a study for the Shell Oil Company of the long-run elasticity of US energy demand. The methodology of the study is described and the results are summarized. It is argued that the process analysis approach, which makes use of subjective judgement, has certain advantages over more formal econometric approaches and is of relevance to current work in energy demand forecasting.     

A model to estimate energy demand and CO2 emissions for the Indian cement industry

A modelling framework based on linear dynamic programming techniques is presented which has been used to estimate energy demand as well as CO₂ emissions associated with the Indian cement industry for different scenarios during the period 1992–2021. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Motor systems energy efficiency supply curves: A methodology for assessing the energy efficiency potential of industrial motor systems

Motor-driven equipment accounts for approximately 60% of manufacturing final electricity use worldwide. A major barrier to effective policymaking, and to more global acceptance of the energy efficiency potential in industrial motor systems, is the lack of a transparent methodology for quantifying the magnitude and cost-effectiveness of these energy savings. This paper presents the results of groundbreaking analyses conducted for five countries and one region to begin to address this barrier. Using a combination of expert opinion and available data from the United States, Canada, the European Union, Thailand, Vietnam, and Brazil, bottom-up energy efficiency supply curve models were constructed to estimate the cost-effective electricity efficiency potentials and CO₂ emission reduction for three types of motor systems (compressed air, pumping, and fan) in industry for the selected countries/region. Based on these analyses, the share of cost-effective electricity saving potential of these systems as compared to the total motor system energy use in the base year varies between 27% and 49% for pumping, 21% and 47% for compressed air, and 14% and 46% for fan systems. The total technical saving potential varies between 43% and 57% for pumping, 29% and 56% for compressed air, and 27% and 46% for fan systems.     

The impact of ICT investment and energy price on industrial electricity demand: Dynamic growth model approach

The authors investigate the effects of information and communications technology (ICT) investment, electricity price, and oil price on the consumption of electricity in South Korea's industries using a logistic growth model. The concept electricity intensity is used to explain electricity consumption patterns. An empirical analysis implies that ICT investment in manufacturing industries that normally consume relatively large amounts of electricity promotes input factor substitution away from the labor intensive to the electricity intensive. Moreover, results also suggest that ICT investment in some specific manufacturing sectors is conducive to the reduction of electricity consumption, whereas ICT investment in the service sector and most manufacturing sectors increases electricity consumption. It is concluded that electricity prices critically affect electricity consumption in half of South Korea's industrial sectors, but not in the other half, a finding that differs somewhat from previous research results. Reasons are suggested to explain why the South Korean case is so different. Policymakers may find this study useful, as it answers the question of whether ICT investment can ultimately reduce energy consumption and may aid in planning the capacity of South Korea's national electric power.