Household Energy Conservation Behaviour: A Socio-Economic Perspective.

Studies on energy conservation and household behavior were predominantly based on econometrics using secondary data, with limited studies employing primary data. In addition, secondary data from developing countries are not without their inadequacies due to missing data points. However, generating data may lead to over or underestimations which led to this study deploying a structural equation model and using cross-sectional data from a developing country perspective. With 329 respondents from each household in Akure Metropolis, Nigeria, who were chosen at random to fill the structured questionnaire provided the data. The Partial Least Square Structural Equation Modeling method was used for the study. The study's findings demonstrated that socioeconomic factors such as home size, income, number of appliances, and weather substantially impact people's behavior regarding energy conservation, with income having the highest structural weight. This suggests that income is crucial to residents' electricity-saving habits since households with higher incomes use more electricity and conserve it less. Therefore, it is advisable that policies to save energy focus on limiting the purchasing power per unit at the household level, where the wealthy pay more tax than the poor. This would encourage improvements in energy conservation in the Nigerian economy's household sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]