Exploring the direct rebound effect of residential electricity consumption: An empirical study in China

Due to the energy rebound effect, the electricity conservation brought about by improving the electricity efficiency of China's households may be not as much as expected. Therefore, this paper employs the panel threshold model to investigate the direct rebound effect of China's residential electricity consumption under different kinds of regimes and its main influencing factors during 2000-2013. The results show that, first, the direct rebound effect (RE) of China's residential electricity consumption is about 72% on average. Second, the direct RE is about 68% (55%) in the low (high) income regime, and the increase in GDP per capita may help to reduce the direct RE. Third, the direct RE is around 75% (90%) in the low (high) cooling degree days regime, and the decrease in cooling degree days may reduce the direct RE. Fourth, the direct RE is around 68% (86%) in the light (heavy) rainfall regime, and the decrease of rainfall may help to reduce the direct RE. Finally, GDP per capita and population have significant positive impact on residential electricity consumption; while the impact of cooling degree days and rainfall appears relatively weaker. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.