IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/energy/v319y2025ics0360544225005675.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The effect of temperature on household hourly electricity consumption: Evidence from South Africa

Author

Listed:
  • Ye, Yuxiang
  • Koch, Steven F.
  • Ye, Xianming

Abstract

Climate change is expected to negatively affect Africa, possibly leading to increased energy needs. However, meeting that need could prove problematic; more than a decade of load-shedding in South Africa is suggestive in that regard. In this research we examine the effect of temperature on electricity consumption, focusing on mainly rural households in South Africa. We apply a series of fixed effects panel models to hourly temperature and electricity consumption data across eight months and twelve locations in the country. We find limited evidence that increased temperatures drive increased electricity use; rather, electricity use increases as temperatures decline, although at temperatures below 10 °C, the gradient is approximately level. Given that few of our study’s households own cooling or heating appliances, the result is not entirely surprising. However, without such appliances, poor rural households will not be able to cope with rising temperatures.

Suggested Citation

  • 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).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:energy:v:319:y:2025:i:c:s0360544225005675
    DOI: 10.1016/j.energy.2025.134925
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360544225005675
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.energy.2025.134925?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Susanna B. Berkouwer, 2020. "Electric Heating and the Effects of Temperature on Household Electricity Consumption in South Africa," The Energy Journal, , vol. 41(4), pages 209-230, July.
    2. Elamin, Niematallah & Fukushige, Mototsugu, 2018. "Modeling and forecasting hourly electricity demand by SARIMAX with interactions," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 165(PB), pages 257-268.
    3. Bas J. van Ruijven & Enrica De Cian & Ian Sue Wing, 2019. "Amplification of future energy demand growth due to climate change," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 10(1), pages 1-12, December.
    4. Maximilian Auffhammer & Anin Aroonruengsawat, 2012. "Erratum to: Simulating the impacts of climate change, prices and population on California’s residential electricity consumption," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 113(3), pages 1101-1104, August.
    5. Chen, Xiaoguang & Yang, Lu, 2019. "Temperature and industrial output: Firm-level evidence from China," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 95(C), pages 257-274.
    6. 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).
    7. Grolemund, Garrett & Wickham, Hadley, 2011. "Dates and Times Made Easy with lubridate," Journal of Statistical Software, Foundation for Open Access Statistics, vol. 40(i03).
    8. Du, Kerui & Yu, Ying & Wei, Chu, 2020. "Climatic impact on China's residential electricity consumption: Does the income level matter?," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 63(C).
    9. Kang, Jieyi & Reiner, David M., 2022. "What is the effect of weather on household electricity consumption? Empirical evidence from Ireland," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 111(C).
    10. Auffhammer, Maximilian, 2022. "Climate Adaptive Response Estimation: Short and long run impacts of climate change on residential electricity and natural gas consumption," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 114(C).
    11. Jian Cui & Lunyu Xie & Xinye Zheng, 2023. "Climate change, air conditioning, and urbanization—evidence from daily household electricity consumption data in China," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 176(8), pages 1-19, August.
    12. Martins, Luís Oscar Silva & Amorim, Inara Rosa & Mendes, Vinícius de Araújo & Silva, Marcelo Santana & Freires, Francisco Gaudêncio Mendonça & Teles, Eduardo Oliveira & Torres, Ednildo Andrade, 2021. "Price and income elasticities of residential electricity demand in Brazil and policy implications," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).
    13. Jeffrey M Wooldridge, 2010. "Econometric Analysis of Cross Section and Panel Data," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 2, volume 1, number 0262232588, December.
    14. Olivier Deschênes & Michael Greenstone, 2011. "Climate Change, Mortality, and Adaptation: Evidence from Annual Fluctuations in Weather in the US," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 3(4), pages 152-185, October.
    15. 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.
    16. Lanlan Li & Xinpei Song & Jingjing Li & Ke Li & Jianling Jiao, 2023. "The impacts of temperature on residential electricity consumption in Anhui, China: does the electricity price matter?," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 176(3), pages 1-26, March.
    17. Auffhammer, Maximilian & Mansur, Erin T., 2014. "Measuring climatic impacts on energy consumption: A review of the empirical literature," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 522-530.
    18. Alan Barreca & R. Jisung Park & Paul Stainier, 2022. "High temperatures and electricity disconnections for low-income homes in California," Nature Energy, Nature, vol. 7(11), pages 1052-1064, November.
    19. Zhang, Mingyang & Zhang, Kaiwen & Hu, Wuyang & Zhu, Bangzhu & Wang, Ping & Wei, Yi-Ming, 2020. "Exploring the climatic impacts on residential electricity consumption in Jiangsu, China," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 140(C).
    20. Ritchie, M.J. & Engelbrecht, J.A.A. & Booysen, M.J., 2024. "Loadshedding-induced transients due to battery backup systems and electric water heaters," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 367(C).
    21. Harish, Santosh & Singh, Nishmeet & Tongia, Rahul, 2020. "Impact of temperature on electricity demand: Evidence from Delhi and Indian states," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 140(C).
    22. Alberini, Anna & Prettico, Giuseppe & Shen, Chang & Torriti, Jacopo, 2019. "Hot weather and residential hourly electricity demand in Italy," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 177(C), pages 44-56.
    23. Koch, Steven F. & Nkuna, Blessings & Ye, Yuxiang, 2024. "Income elasticity of residential electricity consumption in rural South Africa," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 131(C).
    24. Zhang, Shaohui & Guo, Qinxin & Smyth, Russell & Yao, Yao, 2022. "Extreme temperatures and residential electricity consumption: Evidence from Chinese households," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 107(C).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Lanlan Li & Xinpei Song & Jingjing Li & Ke Li & Jianling Jiao, 2023. "The impacts of temperature on residential electricity consumption in Anhui, China: does the electricity price matter?," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 176(3), pages 1-26, March.
    2. 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).
    3. Yang, Shubo & Jahanger, Atif & Awan, Ashar, 2024. "Temperature variation and urban electricity consumption in China: Implications for demand management and planning," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 90(C).
    4. Shi, Han & Wang, Bo & Qiu, Yueming Lucy & Deng, Nana & Xie, Baichen & Zhang, Bin & Ma, Shijun, 2024. "The unequal impacts of extremely high temperatures on households’ adaptive behaviors: Empirical evidence from fine-grained electricity consumption data," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 190(C).
    5. Cuihui Xia & Tandong Yao & Weicai Wang & Wentao Hu, 2022. "Effect of Climate on Residential Electricity Consumption: A Data-Driven Approach," Energies, MDPI, vol. 15(9), pages 1-20, May.
    6. Jones, Andrew & Nock, Destenie & Samaras, Constantine & Qiu, Yueming (Lucy) & Xing, Bo, 2023. "Climate change impacts on future residential electricity consumption and energy burden: A case study in Phoenix, Arizona," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 183(C).
    7. 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.
    8. 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.
    9. Jiang, Lei & Yang, Linshuang & Wu, Qingyang & Zhang, Xinyue, 2024. "How does extreme heat affect carbon emission intensity? Evidence from county-level data in China," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 139(C).
    10. De Cian, Enrica & Falchetta, Giacomo & Pavanello, Filippo & Romitti, Yasmin & Sue Wing, Ian, 2025. "The impact of air conditioning on residential electricity consumption across world countries," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 131(C).
    11. Lehr, Jakob & Rehdanz, Katrin, 2024. "The effect of temperature on energy related CO2 emissions and economic performance in German industry," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 138(C).
    12. Chang, Jun-Jie & Mi, Zhifu & Wei, Yi-Ming, 2023. "Temperature and GDP: A review of climate econometrics analysis," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 383-392.
    13. Alexander C. Abajian & Tamma Carleton & Kyle C. Meng & Olivier Deschênes, 2025. "Quantifying the global climate feedback from energy-based adaptation," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 16(1), pages 1-15, December.
    14. Melissa Dell & Benjamin F. Jones & Benjamin A. Olken, 2014. "What Do We Learn from the Weather? The New Climate-Economy Literature," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 52(3), pages 740-798, September.
    15. Zhang, Shaohui & Guo, Qinxin & Smyth, Russell & Yao, Yao, 2022. "Extreme temperatures and residential electricity consumption: Evidence from Chinese households," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 107(C).
    16. François Cohen & Matthieu Glachant & Magnus Söderberg, 2017. "The cost of adapting to climate change: evidence from the US residential sector," Working Papers hal-01695171, HAL.
    17. Harish, Santosh & Singh, Nishmeet & Tongia, Rahul, 2020. "Impact of temperature on electricity demand: Evidence from Delhi and Indian states," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 140(C).
    18. Li, Xue & Smyth, Russell & Xin, Guangyi & Yao, Yao, 2023. "Warmer temperatures and energy poverty: Evidence from Chinese households," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 120(C).
    19. Song, Feng & Miao, Xintong & Xia, Fang, 2025. "Fighting climate change together: The regional heterogenous impacts of climate change and potentials of regional power market," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 141(C).
    20. Bui, Thanh-Huong & Bui, Ha-Phuong & Pham, Thi Mai-Anh, 2024. "Effects of temperature on job insecurity: Evidence from Australia," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 264-276.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;

    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:eee:energy:v:319:y:2025:i:c:s0360544225005675. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.journals.elsevier.com/energy .

    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.