The rebound effects of energy-efficient air conditioners: buy more, bigger, or use longer?

To track the driving forces of rebound effects, the household electricity consumption of air conditioner (AC) was decomposed into the number, power size, and operating hours of AC. A set of regression models was built to find the influence pathways of increasing electricity consumption. Then, a two-stage decision-making process of AC purchase was studied to find the target customers of energy-efficient AC, using the joint estimation of logistic and zero-truncated negative binomial regression models. Data of 371 households in Hsinchu County in Taiwan were used based on the questionnaire survey of the household energy consumption behavior in 2018. Estimated results indicated that households having energy-efficient AC tend to install larger-power size ones causing the electricity consumption of AC to increase. Oversized AC was the main driving force of rebound effects. Contrarily, the using time of AC was not the key influence factor on electricity consumption. Estimated results also indicated that households living in urban apartments, especially for those with large floor area, would have higher probability of choosing energy-efficient AC and would install a greater number of that.

Automated summary

This study decomposes the household electricity consumption of air conditioner into different factors and analyzes the influence pathways of increasing energy consumption. It also examines the two-stage decision-making process of AC purchase to identify the target customers for energy-efficient AC. The findings indicate that the power size of the AC is a significant factor contributing to increased electricity consumption.