State of residential energy consumption in Southeast Asia: need to promote smart appliances because urban household consumption is higher than some developed countries

摘要

Energy use in Southeast Asian countries increases annually, and will continue to rise with improving living standards. However, data collection related to residential energy consumption lags behind, and understanding the state of consumption is challenging. In 2015, we conducted a field study on residential energy consumption in Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia to indicate how improved lifestyles result in increased energy consumption compared to the other developed countries in Southeast Asia and Japan. To analyse these relationships, we surveyed energy use and people’s lifestyle, including equipment ownership and methods of use. As a result, we found that energy consumption of lighting, plug loads, cooling and cooking in urban areas of Southeast Asia approaches that found in developed countries and in some cases exceeds this. In other words, energy consumption in emerging countries has become a more critical issue than in developed countries. In this paper, we explain the variance in energy consumption of developing, emerging, and developed countries, due to differences in housing, equipment, income, and lifestyle. Next, we explain the new energy efficiency policy in Thailand, Energy Efficiency Development Plan 2015. EEDP 2015 is the most advanced policy in Southeast Asia that includes an Energy Efficiency Obligation. We also discuss the importance of strengthening of MEPS, energy efficiency labelling and promotion of smart appliances. Eventually, we aim to collect and analyse energy consumption patterns in households in several Southeast Asian countries, to create a database with the results from the surveys, to develop scenarios in order to mitigate CO_2 emissions, and to develop a platform that can examine the gradual effects at different stages of national development. Moreover, we aim to develop an open platform database, to share our survey results with international experts, researchers, professors and policymakers in the future.