Energy Consumption Behaviour of an Urban Residential Sector in the Northern Province of Madhya Pradesh (India)

Abstract

Energy crises represent a bottleneck in the progress of the Indian economy. In the present scenario, high energy consumption is more noticeable with the development of the economy of the country, due to changes in the lifestyle of the consumers in the residential sector. The current challenge is to seek sustainable development, maintaining activities, transformation and progress levels while adopting more efficient use of existing resources and achieving energy conservation. An assessment of the energy consumption of the residential sector of the Gwalior city, Madhya Pradesh (India) has been carried out in the present investigation. Structured questionnaires were distributed among the 500 households during the present investigation. The survey has indicated that the majority of households are using modern high energy appliances leading to overuse of the valuable energy resources. The present investigation demonstrates that most of the buildings were not climate responsive, and were consuming high levels of energy to achieve thermal comfort for residents. The western region of the country is the largest consumer of the total energy. There is a dire need to go for an energy-efficient operation with public participation that may greatly reduce the energy consumption and ultimately reduce burden on fossil fuels.