Exploring the Causal Relationship between Time Use Behavior and Residential Electricity Consumption in Central Punjab, Pakistan

Abstract

The current paper studies the causal relation between the time-use behavior, which is the daily allocation of time spent at work, at home, at leisure, and resting, and the residential energy consumption, in the cities of Lahore and Faisalabad, Pakistan. With an increase in energy use and urban populations, determining behavioral determinants of electricity use is vital to demand-side energy management approaches. Using 200 households that were sampled using structured recall time-use surveys, the study presents a combination of descriptive statistics and Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition to analyse the findings. As its title suggests, it investigates the influence of socioeconomic dimensions, time use, ownership of appliances, and energy consciousness on the pattern of electricity consumption. Stratified random sampling was applied to secure representation of levels of income and types of households. Results indicate that the majority of respondents consume more than 12 hours at home on working days, and energy consumption is directly connected to time use patterns, conservation habits, and awareness of appliance efficiency. More than half of the energy-conscious households implemented the energy-saving technologies: solar panels, knowledge of time-of-use tariffs, and change of inefficient appliances. The decomposition analysis indicates a forced consumption gap that appears between Lahore and Faisalabad. The one that is explained is associated with individualistic and observable aspects of ownership of appliances and family structure, whereas the not explained part is composed of contextual and behavioural factors reflective of informal economies, flexible lifelines, and social norms.