Book Description

Household energy has received increasing attention in recent years as the importance of the household sector in the energy balances of developing countries has become better understood and the problems of maintaining adequate supplies of household energy in many of these countries have become more critical. This handbook, therefore, is intended to assist in the understanding of household energy issues by presenting a standard framework for measuring and analyzing information on supply and demand in the sector. To this end, the report discusses energy terms and principles underlying the energy units, definitions, and calculations presented in the report and describes household consumption patterns and their relationship to income, location, and household-size variables. In addition, the report evaluates energy end-uses and the technologies which provide cooking, lighting, refrigeration, and space heating services in the context of household energy resources and supplies, focusing on traditional biomass fuels. Finally, the report demonstrates simple assessment methods and presents case studies to illustrate how household energy data can be used in different types of assessments.