A deep understanding of household appliance standby energy use (SEU) and associated saving potentials in Chinese rural areas is vitally important due to the huge amounts of households and appliances. However, to date, few study has been conducted and very little is known about the SEU. Meanwhile, existing methods of estimating such saving potentials have two limitations. Firstly, they primarily evaluated it through upgrading appliances while a more practical way of improving behavior should also be considered. Secondly, they do not take the impact of its influential factors into account simultaneously, and tend to significantly decrease the estimation accuracy. To address the above issues, an investigation on the appliance SEU and its influential factors in Chinese rural homes was first conducted. Then, a data mining-based method for estimating the saving potentials was proposed, and improving occupant behavior pertaining to SEU was also considered in the estimation. The method was further applied under three typical scenarios: appliance upgrades, behavior change and the combination of both. In addition, barriers to promote standby energy reductions have been analyzed and corresponding recommendations have been made. Main contributions of this study include: (1) providing SEU of Chinese rural homes and estimating saving potentials caused by various ways including behavior change and, (2) a new method of estimating energy-saving potentials with improved accuracy. (C) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.