The Economic Analysis And Policy Study Of The Public's Energy Conservation Behavior

Energy conservation is the concrete embodiment of Sustainable consumption, and it is a kind of effective energy consuming behavior which can resolve the environment problems and energy shortage. World Energy Council has raised the concept of energy conservation and indicated that it means improving energy efficiency and quality. In this paper, the public's energy conservation behavior refers to the acts of lowering the energy consumption per unit GDP (i.e. to improve energy efficiency) and using clean energy (i.e. to improve energy quality). And the actors are individuals, groups or organizations, which are directly or indirectly related to energy consuming, by ways of changing habits and technology related to energy.Throughout the process of implementing energy conservation, Energy strategy has gradually shifted from the traditional supply increase to demand management. The key of energy-demanding management is to find out the law of consumption behavior. This paper will give a detailed and systematic study on energy consumption behavior by way of analyzing and explaining the transformation among factors, preference and choice. That is how the preference of certain objects is formed, than how will the preference decide some certain choices. It is better for our forecasting the energy consumption choice and providing directions and basis for government's energy-demanding management. In addition, we will analysis the current situation and effect of energy-saving policies in China and draw experiences of policy carried out by the pioneering countries. As the result, we will construct the practical policy system in China.â… As a "rational economic man" in ordinary life, interest is the main principle that affects public's behavior. However, considering from the whole welfare of society, the contemporary existence of the energy consumption will inevitably harm the interests of future generations. Therefore, in order to induce the loss of the welfare of humanity as a whole, the contemporary generation should conduct some compensation on behalf of future generations. In another word, publics should be "ecological rational economic man" who will keep balance between their own interests and the interests of future generations. In order to realize the role switching of perpetrators, here we will use the behavior theory and microeconomics to analyze the energy-saving behavior of individuals. And this paper will still give a deep analyze on the status and function of publics' own character, act measure's character and policy incentives in the course of "come into being-implement-continuing" by drawing eigenvectors.1. The public's own character will perform or change the individual's preference by its influence on predisposing factor and it relates closely to social development, the quality of population and education etc.2. Act measure's character will go on affecting the producing and continuing of actions by influencing predisposing factor and reinforcing factor. The implementation scope, ways of a certain kind of energy-saving measure will give individuals different cognitive and attitude about the effect, cost and convenience of energy-saving measures. Thus, the fact will influence consumers' preferences motivation and decide public's energy-saving efforts and results. We has done a field survey on the residences of Jinan Shandong Province in May 2006, and the result shows that: people who apply energy-saving measures will firstly consider the effect of the measures, then cost and energy-saving items come out, people pay less attention on the realizing path; Ways with obvious effects and low cost will win people's preference; Most of them prefer simple and initial energy-saving methods which means to realize energy-saving by changing people's habits; In the path of technical energy-saving, people tend to purchase devices of energy-saving but not reform their initial appliance.3. Policy incentives will perform or change the individual's behavior choice by its influence on predisposing factor, enabling factor and reinforcing factor. According to the classification of science policy, policy can be divided into three categories: law policy, economic policy and information policy. Law policy can build a model out of public's anticipation by the way of mandatory; Information policy can change actor's concept and values, and help them foster an awareness of sustainable development of energy, thereby changing the production and consumption behavior; The core role of economic policy is to readjust the economic interests of the various actors according to the principle of material interests. There are two categories of major economic policies: one is the macroeconomic policy which will adjust the behavior directly, such as fiscal policy, monetary policy etc. It works by its influence on promoting factor and predisposing factor: 1) predisposing factor: express the government's policy orientation according to policy differences, then try to change actor's attitude and concept with the aim of forming policy-oriented motives; 2) promoting factor: to increase or decrease behavior cost according to the adjusting of policies then encourage the public choose the behavior pattern led by government. The direct economic policy works effective on condition that the energy price is full of price-elasticity. The second is the indirect economic policy which works by changing the main microcosmic environment then cause the change of behaviors, like industry policy etc.According to the degree of their impacts and functions on energy-saving behavior, three kinds of factors can be involved into the following energy demandingfunction with two phases: , and thesymbol F_c refers to public's own character, F_b means act measure's character while F_p refers to policy incentives. F_c and F_b will decide energy consumption's indifference curve according to their impacts on actors' preferences; while F_p can either change the relative prices of energy-saving and non-energy-saving or those actors' financial capability, then turn or translate budget line.â…¡After a systematic normative study on the characteristics of public's energy-saving behaviors, factors and these factors' function mechanism, the paper will switch to demonstrational research. At the meanwhile of reviewing and evaluating energy-saving policies of pioneer countries, the paper has chosen three types of energy consumption models which come from different countries anddistricts--EU, Japan and America. According to a comparison on law, economyand information policies of the three different countries and districts, we can find the fact that all the energy-saving policies have fulfilled a substantive reduce of energy consumption. These policies and measures have achieved remarkable energy efficiency, economic and environmental effects. The following items are the basis on which these policies can be successful: 1) correctly handle and coordinate all the main interests' status and function in energy-saving; 2) establish a complete energy management system and model; 3) focus on the coherence and inter-activeness of all kinds of energy-saving policies; 4) the principles for policy designing is its effect (or aim), but not simply cost; 5) focus on the role of non-government organizations in saving energy; 6) maintain the policy dynamic. In addition, because of the difference of policy power and manner, natural resource reservation, environment and geography, industry structure etc, the pioneer countries and directors show different energy -saving effects.Chinese government has prompted the idea of energy-saving sine 1980's. After more than 20 years practice, it has achieved a lot in the total energy consumption, energy intensity, the structure of energy consumption etc. The correct energy-saving policy has not only brought us a lower level of energy intensity, but also the obvious environmental effects, which means China has already realized the switch to non-energy-dependent countries and energy-saving policy won't lead to negative growth of economy. According to the analyzing result on related data from 1980-2005, we can come to such a conclusion that although China's energy-saving policies were not so effective as some experts and scholars had described, it was still worthy of recognition, and those policies need our further improve and complete: the law policies are still week; information and education can produce some certain policy effects, but it still far below our anticipation; the adjustment of industrial structure and energy pricing policies in our economic policies can influence our energy-saving target, and at the same time because of the low penetration the subsidies is limited, sometimes it even leads to a negative effect. In addition, as for the achievement we have fulfilled in energy field, the quantitative analysis shows that the adjustment of industrial structure is the most effective and lasting policy.According to the foregoing findings, based on analyzing China's current energy-saving background, the paper will design and build a directing policy system which will prompt public's energy-saving behavior. The energy-saving policies of new era should start with "demand" and "supply", and the concrete assume goes like the following: to build separate energy-saving supervising system featured in "politic apart from supervise" , that will ensure the existence of a isolated and strong department which will upgrade energy-saving's importance to the position of production; to complete and perfect the law system, especially to improve the matching rules and regulations to form a Secure System with Basic law, special laws and enforcement law united in it; to strengthen and promote the publicity of energy-saving system, setting up energy-saving advisory point and website, producing and publicizing energy-saving cases while issuing all kinds of energy-saving items to enhance the public participation capability; to give a full play of domestic and international energy intermediary organizations, realizing the win-win cooperation in the field of energy-saving; to build effective and various energy-saving economy policy systems, including i)energy tax system based on three principles of comprehensive, neutral and differences; ii)dynamic subsidies policy based on performances; iii) financing policy of expanding government's policy-oriented financial institutions and private channel; iv) strengthen the high centralization and informatization of the performance and supervision of government purchasing; v) Excess progressive pricing system which can embody the demand relationship between kinds of energy; vi) industrial policy with market access standards etc.