IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aen/journl/ej41-4-berkouwer.html

Electric Heating and the Effects of Temperature on Household Electricity Consumption in South Africa

Author

Listed:
  • Susanna B. Berkouwer

Abstract

How does temperature affect household energy demand in low-income countries? This paper uses 132,375,282 hourly electricity consumption observations from 5,975 households in South Africa to estimate the causal effects of short-term temperature changes on household electricity consumption. The estimates flexibly identify a constant log-linear temperature response-for every 1°C increase in temperature, electricity consumption decreases by 4.1% among temperatures below the heating threshold but increases by 8.1% among temperatures above the cooling threshold. This relationship is driven more strongly by seasonal than hourly temperature changes. Holding all else constant, a 3.25°C increase in temperatures would reduce electricity consumption by 1,093.4 kWh (6.2%) per year per household. Widespread use of electric heating due to limited residential gas heating infrastructure likely drives this. These results point to important regional heterogeneity in how temperature increases may affect household energy demand in the coming decades.

Suggested Citation

  • Susanna B. Berkouwer, 2020. "Electric Heating and the Effects of Temperature on Household Electricity Consumption in South Africa," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 4), pages 209-230.
    • Handle: RePEc:aen:journl:ej41-4-berkouwer
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.iaee.org/en/publications/ejarticle.aspx?id=3533
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to IAEE members and subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or

    for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Yuanping Wang & Weiguang Cai & Lingchun Hou & Zhaoyin Zhou & Jing Bian, 2022. "Examining the Provincial-Level Difference and Impact Factors of Urban Household Electricity Consumption in China—Based on the Extended STIRPAT Model," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(16), pages 1-18, August.
    2. Shaun McRae, 2023. "Residential Electricity Consumption and Adaptation to Climate Change by Colombian Households," Economics of Disasters and Climate Change, Springer, vol. 7(2), pages 253-279, July.
    3. Meixuan Teng & Hua Liao & Paul J. Burke & Tianqi Chen & Chen Zhang, 2022. "Adaptive responses: the effects of temperature levels on residential electricity use in China," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 172(3), pages 1-20, June.
    4. Ye, Yuxiang & Koch, Steven F. & Ye, Xianming, 2025. "The effect of temperature on household hourly electricity consumption: Evidence from South Africa," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 319(C).
    5. Ye, Yuxiang & Koch, Steven F., 2021. "Measuring energy poverty in South Africa based on household required energy consumption," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 103(C).
    6. Ta, Chi L., 2024. "Do conservation contests work? An analysis of a large-scale energy competitive rebate program," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 124(C).
    7. Uzziah Mutumbi & Gladman Thondhlana & Sheunesu Ruwanza, 2022. "The Status of Household Electricity Use Behaviour Research in South Africa between 2000 and 2022," Energies, MDPI, vol. 15(23), pages 1-14, November.
    8. Shi, Tie & Chen, Hanyi & Liu, Yanzhen, 2025. "Extreme temperatures and residential electricity reliability in China," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 96(C).
    9. Zhang, Guoxing & Shen, Lin & Su, Bin, 2023. "Temperature change and daily urban-rural residential electricity consumption in northwestern China: Responsiveness and inequality," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 126(C).
    10. Zhang, Xiaokong & Chai, Jian & Tian, Lingyue & Yang, Ying & Zhang, Zhe George & Pan, Yue, 2023. "Forecast and structural characteristics of China's oil product consumption embedded in bottom-line thinking," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 278(PA).
    11. Yuxiang Ye & Steven F. Koch & Jiangfeng Zhang, 2022. "Modelling Required Energy Consumption with Equivalence Scales," The Energy Journal, , vol. 43(6), pages 123-145, November.
    12. Hongliang Zhang & Jianhong E. Mu & Bruce A. McCarl & Jialing Yu, 2022. "The impact of climate change on global energy use," Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change, Springer, vol. 27(1), pages 1-19, January.
    13. Shi, Tie & Chen, Hanyi & Xu, Junbing & Wang, Xuebin, 2025. "The effect of temperatures on household electricity consumption in northern China: Evidence from smart meters," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 96(C).
    14. Koch, Steven F. & Nkuna, Blessings & Ye, Yuxiang, 2024. "Income elasticity of residential electricity consumption in rural South Africa," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 131(C).
    15. Yabin Da & Bin Zeng & Jing-Li Fan & Jiawei Hu & Lanlan Li, 2023. "Heterogeneous responses to climate: evidence from residential electricity consumption," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 176(8), pages 1-19, August.
    16. Wei, Kai & Lin, Boqiang, 2025. "Do extreme temperatures exacerbate residential energy expenses burden in China?," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 146(C).

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • F0 - International Economics - - General

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:aen:journl:ej41-4-berkouwer. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: David Williams (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/iaeeeea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.