SUMMARY
This study is a part of a project, called "Energy intensity of lifestyles". The target of this project is to get a view on the cumulative energy requirement for several groups of households in the Netherlands.
Before one can discuss ways of reducing the energy demand of households, one needs to have quantitative information concerning the cumulative (i.e. direct and indirect) energy requirement of households. To make an overview, the energy intensities (in MJ/Dfl.) of about 350 consumption categories (which cover together the total Dutch consumption package) are determined with a hybrid energy analyzing method. The hybrid energy analyzing method used combines process analysis and input-output analysis. To calculate the energy requirement of the average Dutch household the 350 energy intensities are combined with data of the Netherlands Household Expenditure Survey of 1990, which contains the spendings of 2767 representative households in the Netherlands. The energy intensities of all the 350 consumption categories are justified in four studies.
In this study the energy requirement of several products and services for house furnishing (house maintenance, garden, flowers and plants, house-furnishing, kitchen- and other house equipment, lamps, cleaning stuff, detergents and the direct energy requirement for heating and electricity) are analyzed.
The total average energy demand in the Netherlands in 1993 for the analyzed categories in this study is about 663 PJ. The direct energy requirement for heating and electricity takes more than 80 percent of the total energy requirement of the categories analyzed here. The energy intensity of the category 'heating and electricity' (direct energy requirement) is about ten times larger than the average energy intensity of the other in this study analyzed consumption categories (indirect energy requirement).
Spendings in services do have the lowest energy intensity. Also spendings with a low energy intensity are kitchen- and other house equipment, furniture, armatures, bulbs, instruments and tools.
Spendings in products which do contain a lot (cheap) bulk materials have a relative high energy intensity. Products with a relative high energy intensity are potting compost, flowers and plants from the hothouses, cement, tin foil, timber and three-ply board.
The in this report generated energy intensities are not in every case suitable for calculating the energy requirement of a single household or specified products.