1020 Research Article International Journal of Current Engineering and Technology ISSN 2277 - 4106 © 2013 INPRESSCO. All Rights Reserved. Available at http://inpressco.com/category/ijcet The Consumption of Firewood as an Energy Consumption among Households in Kosovo and its Environment Implications Bujar Pira a , Ibrahim Cunaku a , Ylber Limani b and Agron Bajraktari a* a University of Prishtina, Faculty of Applied Sciences, Mother Teresa Str. 10000 Prishtina, Republic of Kosovo b University for Business and Technology, Emshir, 10000 Prishtina, Republic of Kosovo Accepted 05 August 2013, Available online 10 August, Vol.3, No.3 (August 2013) Abstract Energy consumption research in household is very complicated since households in Kosovo use various energy sources for many purposes. Furthermore, the energy consumption has become even This high preference of usage of firewood in households, which is continuously increasing, will have more unpredicted by the fact that Kosovo is has a very high unemployment rate (highest in Europe), very high electricity prices, which for most of the Kosovar households unmanageable financially as a result of low average salary, which complicates issues further. This paper will try to show the quantity and quality, respectively the efficiency of energy consumption in Kosovo separated in different types of energy sources. Although all energy consumption sources will be analysed, more attention will be paid to the firewood consumption for various reasons but mainly financial since for some households wood from their own forests or even public forests is free, even though wood logging is illegal without permission in Kosovo. Furthermore, the paper will analyse living conditions, quality of construction with regards the absorptive material or energy insulated, house equipments or energy consumption sources, varieties of heating appliances that are used in household, and finally some basic information that are linked with the efficiency of energy consumption, the level of efficiency measures used in Kosovo households as well their future plans regarding energy efficiency. Keywords: Energy, Kosovo, households, consumption, firewood 1. Introduction 1 Over the last ten years Kosovo has had a rocky ride with regards to available energy, in particular electrical energy. Kosovo of its 11,000km 2 , 43% of it is forest. From about half million hectares of Kosovo’s forests 60% is public and 40% is private owned forest (FAO, 2003). Human Development Report on Energy for Development (UNDP Kosovo 2007) has identified firewood as the main source of heating by 80 percent of households surveyed for this report, with electric heating being the main source for 12 per cent. According to UNDP, there is only a small difference in the relative use of electricity and firewood between urban and rural households. Also, in some rural parts of Kosovo, as a result of restriction of electrical energy and numerous breakdowns on both power plants and distribution network, there were times when households and businesses were more without electricity then they were with. On addition to this and with high fuel prices people turned to the consumption of firewood for both heating and households cooking as well. huge consequences to the environment in Kosovo. The *Corresponding author: Agron Bajraktari, Phone: +37745999666 wood used from the Kosovo forests is much more than what is allowed, thus, if it continues at the current consumption rate, Kosovo could have no forests in the future (Pira et al., 2011). 2. Methodology In 2009 Riinvest Institute has conducted a comprehensive survey with all sectors of economy in Kosovo about overall energy consumption. The study was conducted with all five sectors of Kosovar economy: household, industry, agriculture, transport and services. All sectors were interviewed separately and apart from the industry sector, which the whole sector was interviewed, all other sectors we interviewed using samples. All alternatives to the data collection were analysed and interpersonal, “face-to-face”, interviews have been selected as the best methods in collection of quantitative energy consumption data. For the purpose of the households sector, initial analyses were done to determine that there have been similar surveys done on the energy consumption and firewood in particular. In addition, regional and experiences from developing countries were conducted to