FACTORS AFFECTING HOUSEHOLD'S {NTENTTON TO SAVE ENERGY: THE CASE OF BATTICALOA DISTRICT ERAWR PATTU DIVISIONIAL SECRETARTAT AREA

Abstract

The rapid increase in energy consumption is becoming a very important issue in Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka mostly depends on nonrenewable energy sources. These resources are not available In Sri Lanka. Therefore there is a need for import these resources from other countries. This act requires more money. It is considered as the economic impact of overconsumption of energy. At the same time, overconsumption of energy increases Cost emission as well. This leads to environmental issues. To address this issue, this study identifies and explores the determinants of energy saving behavioral intention among households in the Eravur Pattu Divisional Secretariat Area from the perspective of the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB). TPB is used to test whether Attitude, Subjective Norn, Perceived behavioral control, Personal moral Norn, Habit, Positive anticipated emotion, and Price effect Intention to save energy, which then leads to the performance of Energy saving behavior. Data were collected using a questionnaire survey method. Questionnaires were issued to 450 households in Eravur Pattu Divisional Secretariat Area. Among them, information from 378 respondents was analyzed. In this study, the statistical tools used to analyze the levels of variables, while relationships were measured by Pearson correlation, and the impact was measured by linear regression. The result of the correlation analysis indicates that all the variables are positively related to the intention to save energy and intention to save energy is positively leads to energy saving behavior and the result of regression analysis shows that the factors in the research model explain 71.7% of the changes in the Intention to save energy of households in the Eravur Pattu Divisional Secret arias Area. Research result shows that Personal moral norm is powerful variable to predict the intention to save energy. Based on the research result researcher has made some feasible and reasonable recommendations for local and national energy-saving policies. It will be helpful to increase household's energy saving practices and get economical, environmental and social benefits.