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Climate impacts: temperature and electricity consumption

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Abstract

One of the aspects of climate change is temperature rise. Temperature rise or fluctuations affect human economic activities and electricity consumption. This paper estimates the changes in electricity consumption due to temperature fluctuation at the county scale in rural China. By using the statistics of counties from 2006 to 2015 in a fixed-effect panel model, the results indicate that a one-degree temperature increase in summer days may lead to 0.015% more electricity consumption per capita, and this correlation may be weaker as income increases. Moreover, a one-degree temperature decrease in winter days may lead to 0.002% more electricity consumption. The northern region may consume 0.021% more electricity than the southern region when facing the same temperature drop. Overall, the effect of temperature on electricity consumption is modest, particularly for a drop in temperature, but the usage of other types of energy may increase to adapt to the cold.

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Acknowledgements

This study is supported by China’s National Key R&D Program (2016YFA0602801), National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 71673026, 71642004), the Special Fund for Joint Development Program of Beijing Municipal Commission of Education, the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities and the Fok Ying Tung Education Foundation for financial support. The views expressed in this paper are solely the authors’ own and do not necessarily reflect the views of the supporting agencies and authors’ affiliations. The authors alone are responsible for any remaining deficiencies.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Management and Economics, Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing, 100081, China

    Chen Zhang & Hua Liao

  2. Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research, Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing, 100081, China

    Chen Zhang & Hua Liao

  3. Sustainable Development Research Institute for Economy and Society of Beijing, Beijing, 100081, China

    Chen Zhang & Hua Liao

  4. Beijing Key Laboratory of Energy Economics and Environmental Management, Beijing, 100081, China

    Chen Zhang & Hua Liao

  5. Collaborative Innovation Center of Electric Vehicles in Beijing, Beijing, 100081, China

    Hua Liao

  6. The Bartlett School of Construction and Project Management, University College London, London, UK

    Zhifu Mi

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  1. Chen Zhang
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  2. Hua Liao
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Correspondence to Hua Liao.

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Zhang, C., Liao, H. & Mi, Z. Climate impacts: temperature and electricity consumption. Nat Hazards 99, 1259–1275 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11069-019-03653-w

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