Household Energy Conservation in Kenya: Estimating the Drivers and Possible Savings

This paper uses the National Energy Survey Data for Kenya 2009 to investigate the main determinants of household energy conservation and savings, exploiting discrete choice and Tobit models. It estimatea conservation models for five household fuels—fuel wood, charcoal, kerosene, LPG, and electricity—and generates information to predict not only the odds for household energy conservation but also the levels of possible savings.

The findings reveal that demographic variables, such as the household head’s gender and occupational and educational attainment, as well as household location and size, are key determinants of not only the propensity to conserve energy but also levels of actual energy savings.