2009. Impacts of Climate Change on Residential Electricity Consumption: Evidence from Billing Data. Unpublished MS

This study simulates the impacts of higher temperatures resulting from anthropogenic cli-mate change on residential electricity consumption for California. Flexible temperature response functions are estimated by climate zone, which allow for differential effects of days in different temperature bins on households ’ electricity consumption. The estimation uses a comprehensive household level dataset of billing data for California’s three investor-owned utilities (Pacific Gas and Electric, San Diego Gas and Electric, and Southern California Edison). The results suggest that the temperature response varies greatly across climate zones. Simulation results using a downscaled version of the National Center for Atmospheric Research global circulation model suggest that for constant population the total demand for the households considered may in-crease by up to 55 % by the end of the century. The study further simulates the impacts of higher electricity prices and different scenarios of population growth. Finally, simulations were conducted consistent with higher adoption of cooling equipment in areas which are not satu-rated, as well as gains in efficiency potentially due to aggressive energy efficiency policies