Residential electricity demand for Spain: new empirical evidence using aggregated data

Abstract

This paper presents an empirical analysis on the residential demand for electricity. This analysis has been performed using aggregate panel data at the province level for 47 Spanish provinces for the period from 2000 to 2008. For this purpose, we estimated a log-log demand equation for electricity consumption using a dynamic partial adjustment approach. This dynamic demand function has been estimated using OLS, a fixed effect model, and a GMM estimator proposed by Blundell and Bond (1998). The purpose of this empirical analysis has been to highlight some of the characteristics of the Spanish residential electricity demand. Particular attention has been paid to the influence of price, income, and weather conditions on electricity demand. The estimated short and long-run own price elasticities are, as expected, negative, but lower than 1. Furthermore, weather variables have a significant impact on electricity demand.residential electricity demand, panel data, partial adjustment model, aggregate data