Determinants of household electricity consumption savings: A Latvian case study

In order to assess the potential for energy efficiency in households it is important to understand the implications for household electricity consumption by analyzing the factors that impact consumption. Moreover some recent studies suggested that changes in household electricity consumption are more likely to be explained by user behavioural aspects than technical solutions. This paper examines the influence of household's personal, demographic, socio- economic, the stock and use of electrical appliances, structural characteristics, external factors (such as weather, location etc.) by analysing data obtained from a smart metering pilot project currently being implemented in 500 Latvian households. The preliminary results show a decrease of the electricity consumption in 2013 (April -December) by 23% for the target group and 5% for the control group. The aim of the study is to introduce a novel model for assessing electricity consumption and savings achieved in households. The main tasks of this study is to examine the main characteristics determining electricity consumption savings, in particular, to evaluate the extent of smart metering influence on electricity consumption savings by using linear regression model.

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