Energy service satisfaction in two Mexican communities: A study on demographic, household, equipment and energy related predictors

Highlights

• ES and commodities shift from hierarchical to horizontal importance as income increase.

• Material units serve partially as surrogates of ES satisfaction.

• ES satisfaction has decreasing returns to scale as income increase.

• Material improvements only explain the gains on “essential” ES in lower incomes.

• The most important material predictor: household characteristics; energy and commodities ranked second.

Abstract

In an age where energy consumption is the major source of environmental impacts, the comprehension on how energy use affects quality of life is ever more relevant. Multiple elements in the link may act as a barrier, except for one crucial concept often ignored: Energy Services (ES), the closest contact between end-uses of energy and human satisfaction. This study explores the link through such concept by analysing how 17 predictors associate to six dimensions of ES satisfaction in two income groups. Data is gathered from two locations within one political region (Mexico), so as to control for culture and climate, and the analysis is made based on regional comparisons of principal component analyses and regressions on the data. The findings suggest that ES and commodities are prioritised differently as income rise, and that materially-based gains on ES show general decreasing returns to scale, being largest on “essential” ES in the lower incomes. Additionally, household characteristics seem to be the most relevant within these material predictors, placing energy use and commodities (including better technology) second in importance. These results suggest crucial theoretical and policy implications on development strategies also discussed in the study.

Introduction

As never before, the energy and environmental crises are giving way to new surges of energy related research focused on a “demand” perspective. The traditional “supply” oriented methods, centred on economic or engineering fixes on the system (Dincer and Rosen, 2007, Hamdia Afgan and Carvalho, 2002), are increasingly acknowledged as having overlooked meaningful human aspects related to energy use (Dietz et al., 2010, Wilbanks, 2010, Greene, 2010, Smil, 2003, Foster, 2002), supporting the early views of many critics arguing that a key omitted factor is how social ends could be brought into the analysis (Rosa et al., 1988, Mazur and Rosa, 1974, Illich, 1974). Consequently, “demand” oriented studies have been on the rise, refocusing on underlying concepts like progress, satisfaction or human well-being and its relationship to energy consumption (Mazur, 2011, Steinberger and Roberts, 2010), for these are recognised as the main drivers of the pressing resource and environmental problems.

Yet, trying to understand the complex relationships between the “human” and the “technical” is far from straightforward. Vast literature exist on well-being (Diener and Ryan, 2009, Graham, 2009) as well as other socio-environmentally based approaches (Cravioto et al., 2011, Knight and Rosa, 2011, Dietz et al., 2009), but the understanding of the effects of the use of energy on human well-being isolated from other elements remains complex, as well as determined by structural, geographical and cultural conditions. Newer approaches to control these factors are therefore needed, and one potentially useful but scarcely studied is through the concept of energy services (ES).

ES first appeared in some analysts׳ publications during the 1980s (Reister and Devine, 1981, Kahane, 1991), but have been echoing in recent works (Sovacool, 2011, Norgard, 2000, Jonsson et al., 2011). ES are defined as “the benefits that energy carriers produce for human well-being” (Sovacool, 2011) or more concretely, the well-being dimension attained from transforming energy in the form of end-uses. They cover a wide variety of aspects related to energy use, e.g. the heating, cooling or lighting of a living space, etc. (Sovacool, 2011, Modi et al., 2006), and thus control for other factors in this link between energy consumption and their associated benefits.

Although some studies have analysed ES, most have attributed similar characteristics of end-uses on them. They have been given units of money, heat, work or temperature as measurements under the assumption that such could be surrogates of satisfaction (Sovacool, 2011, Modi et al., 2006, Norgard, 2000, Haas et al., 2008, Reister and Devine, 1981), but such a premise may not be accurate, given that there is consensus from social research that a decoupling exists between well-being and material consumption (Pasternak, 2000, Mazur, 2011, Steinberger and Roberts, 2010, Mazur and Rosa, 1974).

Theory on ES, on the other hand, has also drawn interest in recent years, but likewise empirical work is still exploring the essential interactions with other factors. Within the small available literature, probably the most important study has been that by Sovacool (2011), where several aspects of ES among urban income groups were compared. In this study, Sovacool observed changes in three energy-related aspects as income increase: higher direct and indirect energy consumption, different driving factors for such energy use and lesser number of ES within households. He called this the “energy service ladder” hypothesis, a premise deserving further empirical investigation.

Despite the other multiple potential applications that ES measured closer to its well-being dimension may have, such approach has received less attention. The few studies focused on measuring ES satisfaction seem to be less connected with energy analysis (Romero et al., 2013), although they might be useful to test how well the material units could function as surrogates of satisfaction. Another unexplored area is the connection between ES satisfaction and predictors related to end-uses of energy, which could explain the actual effects of direct or indirect energy consumption on well-being, controlling for non-energy related factors. Additionally, several other applications might stem from such approach, as the analysis of ES satisfaction gains in relation to the other energy related predictors could inform not only sustainable energy use paths, but also welfare and development policies focused on commodities (e.g. equipment acquisition or newer technology).

The purpose of this study, therefore, is to approach the well-being-energy link by analysing how 17 predictors associate to six ES measured in a self-rated satisfaction scale (illumination, temperature regulation, food preservation, communications, transport and entertainment). For the study, two locations with large income differences within one political region (Mexico) were selected. A selection that allows control over culture and climate effects, while at the same time providing a large income contrast. To elucidate the effects attributable to income, the results from these two settings were compared, analysing first, how predictors with multiple elements were condensed in components (from applying Principal Component Analysis on them), and then, how ES satisfaction linked differently with the predictors as explanatory variables. Lastly, the study concludes discussing the implications of the results on energy policy, connecting the findings with the “ES ladder” hypothesis and providing valuable insight to future research.

The structure of this research is as follows: Section 2 presents details on the data collection, assumptions and methods used, Section 3 the results, Section 4 the discussion, and Section 5 the conclusions.