Abstract
The rate of increase for energy demand in the residential and com-mercial sectors has been relatively large when compared with those of industrial and transportation sectors.But when examined for the next10or20years, it will be remarkably saturated because of low economic growth, the improvement of energy conservation through the rapid increase of energy prices and change of people's life style.That is to say, the annual increase rate for future energy demand in residential and commercial sectors will be reduced to2.9-3.5% from1979to1990and1.5-1.8% from1990to the year2000, which is much lower than the past.Despite the drop of rate of increase for the total energy demand, if the real price of oil will be continuously hiked as OPEC countries insist, the residential energy prices will be also increased and will affect the total national living standard, especially the damage to the lower income families will be serious.In the residential and commercial sectors, energy conservation and substitutions may occur.Therefore, the potentials for oil conservation is large depending on relative price changes among energies.
