Beyond average energy consumption in the French residential housing market: A household classification approach

The need to reduce Green House Gases emissions has jointly lead to increasing concerns regarding the efficiency of national mitigation agendas and the potential exposure of certain households to energy poverty. Hence, the comprehension of the key determinants that influence the energy demand appears to be crucial for the effectiveness and fairness of energy policies. We particularly consider that targeting specific households groups rather than looking for a unique national target level of energy consumption would be more effective. This article explores the scope of having a disaggregated energy consumption market to design policies aimed at curbing residential energy consumption or lowering its carbon intensity. Using a clustering method based on CHAID (Chi Square Automatic Interaction Detection) methodology, we find that the different levels of energy consumption in the French residential sector are related to socio-economic, dwelling and regional characteristics. Then, we build a typology of energy-consuming households where targeted groups (fuel poor, high income and high consuming households) are clearly and separately identified through a simple and transparent set of characteristics. This classification represents an efficient tool for energy efficiency programs and energy poverty policies but also for potential investors, which could provide specific and tailor-made financial tools for the different groups of consumers. Furthermore, our approach is helpful to design an energy efficiency score that could reduce the rebound effect uncertainty for each identified household group.