Urbanization Effect on Regional Household Energy Consumption in China

China is experiencing acceleration of urbanization process that with an average annual growth of 1. 4% since 1996.Meanwhile residential energy consumption in China is also in a rapid growth in this period. Moreover,given the fact of China 's unbalanced regional development,the evolutions of urbanization and residential energy use,and the relationships between them in different regions may differ from each other. This paper then studies the individual evolutions of urban effects on direct use of residential energy in Chinese four regions during 1996- 2011. By using Divisia index decomposition method,we decompose the changes of residential energy consumption in four regions into four driving factors,i. e. population growth effect,urbanization effect,effect of urban residential energy consumption per capita and effect of rural residential energy consumption. Impacts of urbanization rate increase on residential energy consumption in eastern,western,and central regions are focused,of which absolute and marginal contributions on total energy consumption and each type of energy consumption are analyzed. The results show that:( 1) urbanization rate increase contributes to residential energy consumption in eastern,central,western,northeastern regions by 4. 2%,20. 6%,4. 1%,and- 0. 01% respectively.( 2) Contribution from urbanization rate increases to residential energy consumption exists little difference among regions,of which that to eastern region is the least.( 3) Unlike other regions,urbanization effect in central region on its coal consumption is positive; urbanization increases in eastern and central regions contribute to their oil consumption by 3- 4 times of that in western region; urbanization effect in eastern region on its electricity consumption is close to zero.( 4) Every one percentage rise in urbanization rate in eastern region contributes to its residential oil consumption by 1. 9 and 2. 3 times of that in central and western regions respectively,and the situations to natural gas consumption and heat consumption are similar,both with highest contribution in western region. The conclusions provide some implications for regional energy management and energy conservation and emission reduction.