The national energy transition will largely depend on changes in household energy consumption.
In 2015, the residential sector alone was responsible for 30% of final energy consumption and 25% of CO2 emissions in Francea. However, the magnitude of the energy spending is closely correlated with:
- the type of housing (individual or collective),
- its energy performance,
- its heating system,
- and its geographic location,
- as well as the conditions for getting bank loans to carry out energy-related renovation projects.
In this context, IFPEN looked at the energy consumption behavior of French households between 1999 and 2013, and studied the trade-off between the quality and cost of the energy services available in the residential sector and overall budget restrictions (share of the budget allocated to energy spending).
Using a methodology borrowed from organizational sciences and strategic marketingb, we built a typology of energy consuming households where targeted groups (fuel poor, high income and high consuming households) are clearly and separately identified through a simple and transparent set of characteristics(1).
According to this typology, energy poverty is a reflection of financial poverty, with the households concerned all belonging to the first two income deciles.
Over and above this observation, the study also shows that households in apartments- frequently ignored in the energy efficiency market - are over-represented among energy-poor households, but also among high-income and high-energy-consuming households.
These results will make it possible to target policies to support energy renovation in the residential sector, either public (tax credits, eco-loan, etc.) or private (creation of financial tools) tailored to the different household groups identified(2).
a- Department of observation and statistics (SOeS), French Ministry for the Environment, Energy and the Sea, 2016.
b- G.V. Kass, 1980. Chi-Square Automatic Interaction Detection - CHAID. Journal of Applied Statistics.
(1) E. Hache, D. Leboullenger, V. Mignon, Beyond average energy consumption in the French residential housing market: A household classification approach - Energy Policy, 2017
>> DOI:10.1016/j.enpol.2017.04.038
(2) E. Hache, D. Leboullenger, Y a-t-il un banquier pour sauver le climat ? - La Revue de l’Énergie, 2016, 633, 391-398
>> http://www.ophrys.fr/fr/catalogue-detail/2220/revue-de-l-energie-la-n-633-septembre-octobre-2016.html
Scientific contact: Emmanuel Hache