Dr Tadhg O'Mahony

Energy efficiency is a major plank of policy efforts to reduce carbon emissions worldwide, but has not been delivering on its promise. This has long been a topic of research, for more than 150 years, since William Stanley Jevons noted the invention in Britain of more efficient steam engines meant that the use of coal became viable for many more uses. A modern example of this ‘rebound effect’ in the residential sector would be changing to low energy LED light bulbs, which often also leads to using and putting in more lights.

Together with colleagues at Changzhou Institute of Technology and Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, this new article in Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews analyses the residential ‘rebound effect’ in China. A significant loss in the gains from energy efficiency is noted, pointing both towards the need for systemic solutions -that effectively reduce emissions- and the need to better understand the rebound in energy consumption globally, when we use more efficient technology.

Wang, L., Zha, D., O’Mahony, T., & Zhou, D. (2023). Energy efficiency lags and welfare boons: Understanding the rebound and welfare effects through China’s urban households. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 188, 113816. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2023.113816