sustainability Article Critical Determinants of Household Electricity Consumption in a Rapidly Growing City Sharif Shofirun Sharif Ali 1,2 , Muhammad Rizal Razman 2, * , Azahan Awang 3 , M. R. M. Asyraf 4 , M. R. Ishak 4 , R. A. Ilyas 5,6 and Roderick John Lawrence 7   Citation: Ali, S.S.S.; Razman, M.R.; Awang, A.; Asyraf, M.R.M.; Ishak, M.R.; Ilyas, R.A.; Lawrence, R.J. Critical Determinants of Household Electricity Consumption in a Rapidly Growing City. Sustainability 2021, 13, 4441. https://doi.org/10.3390/ su13084441 Academic Editor: Zaneta Stasiskiene Received: 2 March 2021 Accepted: 9 April 2021 Published: 15 April 2021 Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affil- iations. Copyright: © 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/). 1 School of Government, College of Law, Government and International Studies (COLGIS), Universiti Utara Malaysia (UUM), Sintok 06010, Malaysia; sshofirun@uum.edu.my 2 Research Centre for Sustainability Science and Governance (SGK), Institute for Environment and Development (LESTARI), Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM), Bangi 43600, Malaysia 3 School of Social, Development and Environmental Studies, Faculty of Social Science and Humanities, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM), Bangi 43600, Malaysia; azahan@ukm.edu.my 4 Department of Aerospace Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM), Serdang 43400, Malaysia; asyrafriz96@gmail.com (M.R.M.A.); mohdridzwan@upm.edu.my (M.R.I.) 5 Sustainable Waste Management Research Group (SWAM), School of Chemical and Energy Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Johor Bahru 81310, Malaysia; ahmadilyas@utm.my 6 Centre for Advanced Composite Materials (CACM), Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Johor Bahru 81310, Malaysia 7 Geneva School of Social Sciences (G3S), University of Geneva, 4 1211 Geneva, Switzerland; roderick.lawrence@unige.ch * Correspondence: mrizal@ukm.edu.my; Tel.: +6-0126-293-185 Abstract: Despite growing urban electricity consumption, information on actual energy use in the household sector is still limited and causal factors leading to electricity consumption remain speculative due to urban expansion and its growing complexity, particularly in developing countries such as Malaysia. This study aims to examine the critical determinants of household electricity consumption by evaluating the patterns and flows of consumption and analysing relationships and their effects on electricity usage among 620 urban households in Seremban, Malaysia. Results suggest that the average urban household electricity consumption is 648.31 kWh/month; this value continues to grow with the increase in the household monthly income (r = 0.360; p < 0.01) and number of rooms (r = 0.360; p < 0.01) as quality of life improves. A large portion of electricity is allocated for kitchen/home consumption, followed by cooling and lighting. Multiple linear regressions revealed that married households with a high monthly income and living in spacious houses together with three to five people are important predictors of electricity consumption in Seremban. This study empirically identified that the number of rooms is the most critical factor of electricity consumption and strategies to increase energy efficiency, maintain resource sustainability and minimise greenhouse gas threat on the urban ecosystem are vital. Therefore, promoting low carbon initiatives for energy conservation and technology improvement and implementing policies in the domestic sector are essential to achieve the greatest potential energy consumption reduction in urban regions. Keywords: socioeconomic profile; urban energy consumption; urban analysis; household electricity consumption; energy conservation 1. Introduction Research on energy consumption has become a focal point recently, with various as- pects of energy being investigated, particularly in emerging economic countries. Malaysia is a developing country that is highly dependent on energy. The share of primary en- ergy supply has been increasing considerably to ensure the sustainability of economic development. Natural gas represented approximately 41.9% of the Malaysian primary energy supply in 2017, followed by crude oil (27.9%) and coal (21.1%) (Figure 1). Rapid Sustainability 2021, 13, 4441. https://doi.org/10.3390/su13084441 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/sustainability