Is temperature change a key driver of the regional diferences in electricity consumption of the economic sectors in Spain (2000–2016)?

Abstract

Climate change has caused signifcant changes in temperature with diferent consequences depending on the geographical location of the regions, afecting among other aspects, electricity consumption (EC). Spain being a country that encompasses so many diferent temperature zones, this work analyses EC per capita among the Autonomous Communities (AC) of Spain through a spatial-temporal decomposition analysis during the 2000–2016 period. The regional diferences are explained by four decomposition factors: intensity, temperature, structural and per capita income. The temporal decomposition results show that temperature changes in Spain between 2000 and 2016 have substantially afected the per capita EC. Likewise, it has been noted that in the 2000–2008 period, the temperature efect mainly acted as an inhibitor compared to the 2008–2016 period, in which an increase in the days of extreme temperature acted as a driver. The spatial decomposition reveals that the structural and energy intensity efects contribute to the AC moving away from average fgures, while the temperature and income efects contributes to reducing the diferences depending on the location of the AC. The results enable to determine the importance of establishing public policy measures aimed at improving energy efciency.