IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jeners/v12y2019i3p456-d202341.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Interannual Variation in Night-Time Light Radiance Predicts Changes in National Electricity Consumption Conditional on Income-Level and Region

Author

Listed:
  • Giacomo Falchetta

    (Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei, Corso Magenta 63, 20123 Milano, Italy
    Catholic University of Milan, Largo Gemelli 1, 20123 Milan, Italy)

  • Michel Noussan

    (Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei, Corso Magenta 63, 20123 Milano, Italy)

Abstract

Using remotely-sensed Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (NPP)-VIIRS (Visible Infrared Imagery Radiometer Suite) night-time light (NTL) imagery between 2012 and 2016 and electricity consumption data from the IEA World Energy Balance database, we assemble a five-year panel dataset to evaluate if and to what extent NTL data are able to capture interannual changes in electricity consumption within different countries worldwide. We analyze the strength of the relationship both across World Bank income categories and between regional clusters, and we evaluate the heterogeneity of the link for different sectors of consumption. Our results show that interannual variation in nighttime light radiance is an effective proxy for predicting within-country changes in power consumption across all sectors, but only in lower-middle income countries. The result is robust to different econometric specifications. We discuss the key reasons behind this finding. The regions of Sub-Saharan Africa, Middle-East and North Africa, Latin America and the Caribbeans, and East Asia and the Pacific render a significant outcome, while changes in Europe, North America and South Asia are not successfully predicted by NTL. The designed methodological steps to process the raw data and the findings of the analysis improve the design and application of predictive models for electricity consumption based on NTL at different spatio-temporal scales.

Suggested Citation

  • Giacomo Falchetta & Michel Noussan, 2019. "Interannual Variation in Night-Time Light Radiance Predicts Changes in National Electricity Consumption Conditional on Income-Level and Region," Energies, MDPI, vol. 12(3), pages 1-20, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jeners:v:12:y:2019:i:3:p:456-:d:202341
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/12/3/456/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/12/3/456/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Anna Bruederle & Roland Hodler, 2018. "Nighttime lights as a proxy for human development at the local level," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 13(9), pages 1-22, September.
    2. Xiao, Hongwei & Ma, Zhongyu & Mi, Zhifu & Kelsey, John & Zheng, Jiali & Yin, Weihua & Yan, Min, 2018. "Spatio-temporal simulation of energy consumption in China's provinces based on satellite night-time light data," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 231(C), pages 1070-1078.
    3. Shi, Kaifang & Yu, Bailang & Huang, Chang & Wu, Jianping & Sun, Xiufeng, 2018. "Exploring spatiotemporal patterns of electric power consumption in countries along the Belt and Road," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 150(C), pages 847-859.
    4. Doll, Christopher N.H. & Pachauri, Shonali, 2010. "Estimating rural populations without access to electricity in developing countries through night-time light satellite imagery," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(10), pages 5661-5670, October.
    5. J. Vernon Henderson & Adam Storeygard & David N. Weil, 2012. "Measuring Economic Growth from Outer Space," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(2), pages 994-1028, April.
    6. Michail Fragkias & José Lobo & Karen C Seto, 2017. "A comparison of nighttime lights data for urban energy research: Insights from scaling analysis in the US system of cities," Environment and Planning B, , vol. 44(6), pages 1077-1096, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Paul Anton Verwiebe & Stephan Seim & Simon Burges & Lennart Schulz & Joachim Müller-Kirchenbauer, 2021. "Modeling Energy Demand—A Systematic Literature Review," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(23), pages 1-58, November.

    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. Naeher,Dominik & Narayanan,Raghavan & Ziulu,Virginia, 2021. "Impacts of Energy Efficiency Projects in Developing Countries : Evidence from a SpatialDifference-in-Differences Analysis in Malawi," Policy Research Working Paper Series 9842, The World Bank.
    2. Du, Mengbing & Ruan, Jianhui & Zhang, Li & Niu, Muchuan & Zhang, Zhe & Xia, Lang & Qian, Shuangyue & Chen, Chuchu, 2024. "China's local-level monthly residential electricity power consumption monitoring," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 359(C).
    3. Thushyanthan Baskaran & Sonia Bhalotra & Brian Min & Yogesh Uppal, 2024. "Women legislators and economic performance," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 29(2), pages 151-214, June.
    4. Edward J. Oughton & Jatin Mathur, 2020. "Predicting cell phone adoption metrics using satellite imagery," Papers 2006.07311, arXiv.org, revised Jun 2021.
    5. Hufschmidt, Patrick & Ume, Chukwuma Otum, 2023. "Conflicts and political intervention: Evidence from the anti-open grazing laws in Nigeria," Ruhr Economic Papers 1009, RWI - Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-University Bochum, TU Dortmund University, University of Duisburg-Essen.
    6. Fabien Candau & Tchapo Gbandi & Geoffroy Guepie, 2022. "Beyond the income effect of international trade on ethnic wars in Africa," Economics of Transition and Institutional Change, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 30(3), pages 517-534, July.
    7. Dickinson, Jeffrey, 2020. "Planes, trains, and automobiles: what drives human-made light?," MPRA Paper 117126, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Isabelle Chort & Berk Öktem, 2024. "Agricultural shocks, coping policies and deforestation: Evidence from the coffee leaf rust epidemic in Mexico," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 106(3), pages 1020-1057, May.
    9. Remi Jedwab & Prakash Loungani & Anthony Yezer, 2019. "How Should We Measure City Size? Theory and Evidence Within and Across Rich and Poor Countries," Working Papers 2019-11, The George Washington University, Institute for International Economic Policy.
    10. Choumert-Nkolo, Johanna & Combes Motel, Pascale & Le Roux, Leonard, 2019. "Stacking up the ladder: A panel data analysis of Tanzanian household energy choices," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 115(C), pages 222-235.
    11. Jain, Chandan & Kashyap, Shagun & Lahoti, Rahul & Sahoo, Soham, 2022. "Do Educated Leaders Affect Economic Development? Evidence from India," IZA Discussion Papers 15278, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    12. Berman, Nicolas & Couttenier, Mathieu & Leblois, Antoine & Soubeyran, Raphael, 2023. "Crop prices and deforestation in the tropics," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 119(C).
    13. Valentin Lindlacher & Gustav Pirich, 2024. "The Impact of China’s “Stadium Diplomacy” on Local Economic Development in Sub-Saharan Africa," CESifo Working Paper Series 10893, CESifo.
    14. World Bank, "undated". "South Asia Economic Focus, Fall 2017," World Bank Publications - Reports 28397, The World Bank Group.
    15. Pushkar Maitra & William Yu, 2021. "The Long Shadow of Infrastructure Development: Long Run Effects of Railway Construction in Colonial India," Monash Economics Working Papers 2021-01, Monash University, Department of Economics.
    16. Kammerlander, Andreas & Schulze, Günther G., 2023. "Local economic growth and infant mortality," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(C).
    17. Shapiro, Daniel & Oh, Chang Hoon & Zhang, Peng, 2023. "Nighttime lights data and their implications for IB research," Journal of International Management, Elsevier, vol. 29(5).
    18. Asatryan, Zareh & Baskaran, Thushyanthan & Birkholz, Carlo & Hufschmidt, Patrick, 2021. "Regional redistribution of mineral resource wealth in Africa," ZEW Discussion Papers 21-032, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    19. Pardillo, Marvin, 2021. "Weather Shocks and Economic Activity. Evidence from the Philippines," Warwick-Monash Economics Student Papers 04, Warwick Monash Economics Student Papers.
    20. Jain, Chandan & Kashyap, Shagun & Lahoti, Rahul & Sahoo, Soham, 2023. "The impact of educated leaders on economic development: Evidence from India," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(3), pages 1068-1093.

    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:gam:jeners:v:12:y:2019:i:3:p:456-:d:202341. 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: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    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.