Introduction.

Energy use is crucial to human survival and development. Improvements in lifestyles have historically been associated with increases in energy consumption and the access to appropriate energy services has always been seen as a necessary precondition for development. While the developed or post-industrialised nations have seen some decoupling of energy and gross domestic product (GDP) growth in recent years at high levels of per capita energy use, recent trends reveal that energy consumption in India, and other fast growing developing countries, is increasing rapidly (IEA 2006). The growing share of developing countries like India in global energy use and greenhouse gas emissions serves as the backdrop to this work. The overall purpose is to increase insight into the underlying causes of the growing energy use in India by adopting a household perspective. The household perspective is adopted in order to shed light on the complex relationships between energy use, household consumption, lifestyles and development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]