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Heterogeneous responses to climate: evidence from residential electricity consumption

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Abstract

Existing studies have shown that climate change has important implications for residential electricity consumption, yet how responses to climate vary between rural and urban residents, and more importantly, the roles of electricity pricing regimes in determining such responses remain largely unknown. In this paper, we explore these issues using monthly data in Anhui province in China. Our results suggest that on average rural residents are more sensitive to cooling degree days (CDD) than urban counterparts (0.19% vs 0.08% increase in electricity consumption per unit increase in CDD). Additionally, households who adopt the time of use (TOU) pricing regime tend to be less responsive to temperatures than households choosing tiered pricing regimes (TPHE). Substantial increases in electricity demand induced by climate change are expected in the future. With the pessimistic RCP8.5 scenario, our results suggest an increase of 35.5% and 77.1% in electricity demand respectively for the urban and rural residents in the 2080s relative to 2017.

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Data availability

Data will be made available on reasonable request.

Notes

  1. There are many factors affecting residents’ electricity demand. Some studies focus on the effects of economic development and demographic characteristics, including income (Auffhammer and Wolfram 2014; Yin et al. 2016), population (Adom 2017; Ota et al. 2018), family size (Wu et al. 2021), and electricity price (Shaffer 2020; Wu et al. 2021; Yin et al. 2016).

  2. There are a few exceptions. For instance, based on city-level data from 2005 to 2015, Du et al. (2020) find that climate change characterized by global warming significantly increases household electricity consumption. Using hourly household-level data in Shanghai, Li et al. (2018a) show that the annual peak electricity consumption increases by 36.1% with a 1 °C increase in mean temperature. Relying on household survey data in China, Zhang et al. (2022) find that one extra day with mean temperature exceeding 32 °C leads to an 8.9% increase in annual electricity consumption.

  3. According to the the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), sunshine duration during a given period is defined as the sum of the time for which the direct solar irradiance exceeds 120 W/m2.

  4. We use stations in Bozhou, Suzhou, and Bengbu for Huaibei and stations in Anqing, Tongling, Xuancheng, and Huangshan for Chizhou.

  5. Nonetheless, the panel data model relies on time series variations (year-to-year weather shocks) and thus reflects the short-run effects. As a result, it does not fully take into account the long-run adaption as in the cross-sectional model (see detailed reviews in Blanc and Schlenker (2017), Kolstad and Moore (2020), and Hsiang (2016)).

  6. Another possible explanation is that the rural residents have large per capita living space than their urban counterpart. According to the Statistical Bulletin on National Economic and Social Development of Anhui Province in 2021, per capita living space in rural area was 54.7 m2, whereas it was 42.3 m2 in urban area. Additionally, differences in isolation conditions may also contribute to different responsiveness to CDD in electricity use.

  7. Thus, we consider our projection a lower bounder of energy demand amid climate change. The realized demand could be much larger if we further factor in population growth and economic development, indicating more threats to energy supply.

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Funding

The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support of the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant no. 72174196, the Huo Yingdong Education Foundation (Grant no. 171072), the Open Research Project of State Key Laboratory of Coal Resources and Safe Mining (China University of Mining and Technology) (no. SKLCRSM21KFA05), and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (no. 2022JCCXNY02).

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Author notes

  1. Yabin Da and Bin Zeng contributed equally to this work and should be considered co-first authors.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Agricultural Economics and Rural Development, Renmin University of China, Beijing, 100872, China

    Yabin Da

  2. Center for Sustainable Development and Energy Policy Research, School of Energy and Mining Engineering, China University of Mining & Technology (Beijing), Beijing, 100083, China

    Yabin Da, Bin Zeng, Jing-Li Fan & Jiawei Hu

  3. China GeZhouBa Group Company LTD., Wuhan, 430033, China

    Bin Zeng

  4. Sustainability Economics of Human Settlements, Technical University Berlin, Berlin, 10623, Germany

    Jiawei Hu

  5. School of Management, Hefei University of Technology, Hefei, 230009, China

    Lanlan Li

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  1. Yabin Da
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Contributions

Jingli Fan and Yabin Da framed the study. Bin Zeng collected the data from Lanlan Li and performed the analysis with the help of Jiawei Hu. All authors contributed to writing and reviewing the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Jing-Li Fan.

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Da, Y., Zeng, B., Fan, JL. et al. Heterogeneous responses to climate: evidence from residential electricity consumption. Climatic Change 176, 110 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-023-03590-5

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