Effects of building types and materials on household electricity consumption in Indonesia

•The use of natural materials for constructing buildings is declining in Indonesia.•The use of natural building materials helps reduce the electricity demand of households.•Electricity use was reduced even among urban households in the uppermost quantile.•However, similar mitigation benefits were not observed in rural areas.•Vernacular architecture should be promoted through design and planning guidelines. Air conditioning is one of the growing sources of electricity consumption in developing countries with tropical and sub-tropical climates. Vernacular design and the use of natural building materials are considered effective measures for mitigating the rapid growth in electricity demand, but such arguments and analyses have only been performed at small scales or through prototype studies of individual buildings. We seek to conduct a society-wide analysis by providing a national-scale macro analysis and discuss the social quantile effects of building types and materials on household electricity consumption. With data obtained from two waves of nationally representative household surveys, the Blinder-Oaxaca (BD) and the Firpo, Fortin and Lemieux (FFL) decomposition methods are used for the mean and quantile analyses, respectively. The mean analysis indicates that significant reductions in electricity consumption can be achieved by utilizing natural materials in both urban and rural regions. The FFL decomposition further affirms the use of natural materials in housing can mitigate the electricity consumption among urban occupants even at the 90th quantile. It is recommended that the merits of vernacular houses be emphasized in climate and energy policies, and further measures should be taken to promote vernacular architecture through design and planning guidelines.