Abstract

The Nigerian energy sector (especially the cooking energy) has for decades suffered from crisis and paradox despite Nigeria’s rich energy resource endowments. The practice of linear fuel switching can only be found among the very wealthy and also among the few people on the average income level who want to copy the consumption pattern of the rich. The latter, in the process, end up adopting every new energy technology in vogue. This, no doubt, has resulted in a trend in the use of cooking energy among households in the country. This study, therefore, examines the factors that determine cooking energy patterns in Nigeria. The result of the Auto-Regressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) estimation shows that in the short run, cost, income, subsidy, and previous level of demand are the significant determinants of cooking energy patterns while in the long run, kerosene price, income and population are the significant determinants. The study concludes that the prevalent energy use pattern in Nigeria is more of fuel stacking than the linear progression as stipulated by the energy ladder. This also has some implications on the environment.