| Abstract | Afghanistan is a landlocked country in South Central Asia with an area of 647,500 km2 and population of about 28 million. Kandahar City, the second largest city of Afghanistan, is located in the south east of the country. The city of Kandahar has around 98,000 residential houses, 25,000 public shops, hotels, schools and other commercial properties, 65 manufacturing industries and 4,500 small industries (bakeries, tailors, carpenters and iron work shops). Cars, buses, truck rickshaws and motor cycles are the common vehicles for transportation in the city. Energy is crucial for socio-economic development of any country. However, the energy production and supply in Afghanistan has been unstable due to war and conflict and the domestic energy system was destroyed thereby causing more dependence on the imported energy sources. Therefore, the main objective was to ascertain the energy use of Afghanistan by taking one of its growing cities, Kandahar as a case. The study investigated the energy consumption of Kandahar city in the various sectors, such as residential, commercial, industry and transport, and was specifically focused on residential sector. The study is primarily based on the data collected through field survey and interviews. The results showed that the total annual primary energy in Kandahar city is about 9,023 TJ. The share of fuel oil is 5,415 TJ (60%), firewood is 2,141 TJ (24%), LPG is 1,227 TJ (14%) and hydroelectricity is 216 TJ (2%).The residential sector is the highest consumer of energy in Kandahar city with a share of 49%; followed by transport sector with a share of 43% and only 4% each for the commercial and industrial sector. Most of the energy in residential sector is used for cooking and in commercial sector for mobile phone antennas. Although 90% of the houses in the Kandahar city have access to electricity through national grid, there are frequent load shedding hours when electricity supply is cut off. During those period the households use kerosene and rechargeable LED lamps for lighting and around 24% of the households use generators that use diesel/petrol for electricity required for lighting and pumping water. Survey at commercial, industrial and transport sector was conducted to estimate the type of fuels used in these sectors and the quantities. The most common energy resources are firewood, diesel, electricity and petrol in the residential, commercial, industrial and transport sector. There is a demand supply gap in electricity need, and to address this issue, it is recommended to promote renewable energy technologies, such as solar and hydroelectricity, policies for energy efficiency and a suitable and modern public transport system in the city. |