Seasonal and Regional Residential Electricity Demand

Following the seminal work of McFadden. Puig, and Kirschner (1977) and the general availability of national microdata sets, residential energy demand studies have been conducted for electricity, natural gas, fuel oil. LP gas, and wood (see Garbacz, 1984, 1985). Using the National Interim Energy Consumption Survey (NIECS) data, Garbacz (1984) developed a three-equation model (demand, price, and appliance stock) to estimate national electricity demand using two-stage least squares (2SLS) for house-holds by month. This study builds on the previous work to estimate elasticities by month and by region. It is hypothesized that elasticities vary substantially between the heating and cooling seasons. Previous work by Acton, Mitchell, and Sohiberg (1980); Parti and Parti (1980); Archibald, Finifter, and Moody (1982); Murray et al. (1978); and Garbacz (1984) supports this. Houthakker (1980), Halvorsen (1978), and Murray et al. (1978) also have found differences in elasticities by region.