INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ENERGY RESEARCH Int. J. Energy Res. 2005; 29:755–766 Published online 14 March 2005 in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI: 10.1002/er.1086 Residential energy consumption patterns: the case of Lebanon Ahmad Houri n,y and Samira Ibrahim-Korfali Natural Science Division, Lebanese American University, Beirut 1102 2801, Lebanon SUMMARY In an attempt to fill a significant gap in baseline information, 509 households have been studied to analyse the residential consumption patterns in the urban environment in Lebanon. The average annual household energy consumption has been found to be 6907 kWh, whereas per capita consumption is 1727 kWh. Seasonal and monthly variations are analysed indicating increased energy consumption in the summer months accounting for 28% of total annual consumption. Correlations are indicated for energy consumption with apartment price, area, income and number of residents. Multiple regression analysis indicated statistical significance of income, area and number of residents to the energy consumption. Based on current consumption and electricity generating technologies, 1.6 tons of CO 2 , 7.3 kg of SO 2 in addition to other pollutants are generated per resident. Comparative analysis indicates that Lebanon has electricity consumption similar to that of Western Europe, paving the way for significant energy saving potential. Copyright # 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. KEY WORDS: household; urban; seasonal; baseline information 1. INTRODUCTION Lebanon is classified by the World Bank (2004) as an upper middle-income country with a $4040 per capita GNI in 2003 and moderately indebted. The urban population constitutes 90% of the total population, which emphasizes the importance of studying the residential energy consumption. Electricity generation and distribution is a monopoly of EDL (Electricite du Liban, which is a public utility owned by the government) with some concessions made to smaller companies. In 2001, EDL used 573 071 tons of diesel and 1 355 081 tons of fuel oil (Jizzini, 2002) at a cost of around $500 million. This is used to produce electricity at an average cost of $0.078/kWh. This value varies depending on fossil fuel derivatives market. EDL today suffers from a debt of $2.4 billion and recently a $200 million loan has been passed by the government in an effort to prevent EDL from going bankrupt (Kawas, 2004). The increased costs and spiraling debt have resulted in frequent outages throughout the year, mainly in the summer, damaging the economy and the tourism industry. Despite its troubles, EDL follows a social pricing scheme that Received 4 June 2004 Accepted 10 October 2004 Copyright # 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. y E-mail: ahouri@lau.edu.lb n Correspondence to: Ahmad Houri, Natural Science Division, Lebanese American University, Beirut 1102 2801, Lebanon.