IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ris/ewikln/2016_007.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

When are consumers responding to electricity prices? An hourly pattern of demand elasticity

Author

Listed:
  • Knaut, Andreas

    (Energiewirtschaftliches Institut an der Universitaet zu Koeln (EWI))

  • Paulus, Simon

    (Energiewirtschaftliches Institut an der Universitaet zu Koeln (EWI))

Abstract

System security in electricity markets relies crucially on the interaction between demand and supply over time. However, research on electricity markets has been mainly focusing on the supply side arguing that demand is rather inelastic. Assuming perfectly inelastic demand might lead to delusive statements regarding the price formation in electricity markets. In this article we quantify the short-run price elasticity of electricity demand in the German day-ahead market and show that demand is adjusting to price movements in the short-run. We are able to solve the simultaneity problem of demand and supply for the German market by incorporating variable renewable electricity generation for the estimation of electricity prices in our econometric approach. We find a daily pattern for demand elasticity on the German day-ahead market where price-induced demand response occurs in early morning and late afternoon hours. Consequently, price elasticity is lowest at night times and during the day. Our measured price elasticity peaks at a value of approximately -0.13 implying that a one percent increase in price reduces demand by 0.13 percent.

Suggested Citation

  • Knaut, Andreas & Paulus, Simon, 2016. "When are consumers responding to electricity prices? An hourly pattern of demand elasticity," EWI Working Papers 2016-7, Energiewirtschaftliches Institut an der Universitaet zu Koeln (EWI), revised 16 Mar 2017.
    • Handle: RePEc:ris:ewikln:2016_007
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.ewi.uni-koeln.de/cms/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/EWI_WP_16_07_Hourly_Price_Elasticity.pdf
    File Function: Full text
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bardazzi, Rossella & Oropallo, Filippo & Pazienza, Maria Grazia, 2015. "Do manufacturing firms react to energy prices? Evidence from Italy," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 168-181.
    2. James B. Bushnell & Erin T. Mansur, 2005. "Consumption Under Noisy Price Signals: A Study Of Electricity Retail Rate Deregulation In San Diego," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 53(4), pages 493-513, December.
    3. Thomas Taylor & Peter Schwarz & James Cochell, 2005. "24/7 Hourly Response to Electricity Real-Time Pricing with up to Eight Summers of Experience," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 27(3), pages 235-262, January.
    4. Bessec, Marie & Fouquau, Julien, 2008. "The non-linear link between electricity consumption and temperature in Europe: A threshold panel approach," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(5), pages 2705-2721, September.
    5. Ziramba, Emmanuel, 2008. "The demand for residential electricity in South Africa," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 36(9), pages 3460-3466, September.
    6. repec:dau:papers:123456789/8180 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. Al-Faris, Abdul Razak F., 2002. "The demand for electricity in the GCC countries," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 30(2), pages 117-124, January.
    8. Halicioglu, Ferda, 2007. "Residential electricity demand dynamics in Turkey," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 29(2), pages 199-210, March.
    9. Hosoe, Nobuhiro & Akiyama, Shu-ichi, 2009. "Regional electric power demand elasticities of Japan's industrial and commercial sectors," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(11), pages 4313-4319, November.
    10. Rapanos, Vassilis T. & Polemis, Michael L., 2006. "The structure of residential energy demand in Greece," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 34(17), pages 3137-3143, November.
    11. Lijesen, Mark G., 2007. "The real-time price elasticity of electricity," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 29(2), pages 249-258, March.
    12. Talat Genc, 2014. "Market Power Indices and Wholesale Price Elasticity of Electricity Demand," Working Papers 1402, University of Guelph, Department of Economics and Finance.
    13. Bönte, Werner & Nielen, Sebastian & Valitov, Niyaz & Engelmeyer, Torben, 2015. "Price elasticity of demand in the EPEX spot market for electricity—New empirical evidence," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 135(C), pages 5-8.
    14. Garcia-Cerrutti, L. Miguel, 2000. "Estimating elasticities of residential energy demand from panel county data using dynamic random variables models with heteroskedastic and correlated error terms," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(4), pages 355-366, October.
    15. He, Y.X. & Yang, L.F. & He, H.Y. & Luo, T. & Wang, Y.J., 2011. "Electricity demand price elasticity in China based on computable general equilibrium model analysis," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 36(2), pages 1115-1123.
    16. Holtedahl, Pernille & Joutz, Frederick L., 2004. "Residential electricity demand in Taiwan," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 26(2), pages 201-224, March.
    17. Peter C. Reiss & Matthew W. White, 2005. "Household Electricity Demand, Revisited," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 72(3), pages 853-883.
    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. Knaut, Andreas & Paschmann, Martin, 2017. "Price Volatility in Commodity Markets with Restricted Participation," EWI Working Papers 2017-2, Energiewirtschaftliches Institut an der Universitaet zu Koeln (EWI).
    2. Sergei Kulakov, 2020. "X-Model: Further Development and Possible Modifications," Forecasting, MDPI, vol. 2(1), pages 1-16, February.
    3. Sergei Kulakov & Florian Ziel, 2019. "Determining Fundamental Supply and Demand Curves in a Wholesale Electricity Market," Papers 1903.11383, arXiv.org, revised Nov 2019.
    4. Silvana Tiedemann & Jorge Sanchez Canales & Felix Schur & Raffaele Sgarlato & Lion Hirth & Oliver Ruhnau & Jonas Peters, 2024. "Identifying Elasticities in Autocorrelated Time Series Using Causal Graphs," Papers 2409.15530, arXiv.org.
    5. Hortay, Olivér & Szőke, Tamás, 2019. "Keresleti árrugalmasság becslése a magyar villamosenergia-piacon [Estimating demand-price elasticity on the Hungarian electric energy market]," Közgazdasági Szemle (Economic Review - monthly of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences), Közgazdasági Szemle Alapítvány (Economic Review Foundation), vol. 0(7), pages 788-804.
    6. Obermüller, Frank, 2017. "Explaining Electricity Forward Premiums - Evidence for the Weather Uncertainty Effect," EWI Working Papers 2017-10, Energiewirtschaftliches Institut an der Universitaet zu Koeln (EWI).
    7. Koolen, Derck & Huisman, Ronald & Ketter, Wolfgang, 2022. "Decision strategies in sequential power markets with renewable energy," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 167(C).

    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. Bhattacharyya, Subhes C. & Timilsina, Govinda R., 2010. "Modelling energy demand of developing countries: Are the specific features adequately captured?," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(4), pages 1979-1990, April.
    2. Lee Lian Ivy-Yap & Hussain Ali Bekhet, 2015. "Examining the Feedback Response of Residential Electricity Consumption towards Changes in its Determinants: Evidence from Malaysia," International Journal of Energy Economics and Policy, Econjournals, vol. 5(3), pages 772-781.
    3. Okajima, Shigeharu & Okajima, Hiroko, 2013. "Estimation of Japanese price elasticities of residential electricity demand, 1990–2007," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 433-440.
    4. Jia, Jun-Jun & Guo, Jin & Wei, Chu, 2021. "Elasticities of residential electricity demand in China under increasing-block pricing constraint: New estimation using household survey data," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 156(C).
    5. World Bank, 2011. "A New Slant on Slopes : Measuring the Benefits of Increased Electricity Access in Developing Countries," World Bank Publications - Reports 2742, The World Bank Group.
    6. Blázquez, Leticia & Boogen, Nina & Filippini, Massimo, 2013. "Residential electricity demand in Spain: New empirical evidence using aggregate data," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 648-657.
    7. Ghaith, Ahmad F. & Epplin, Francis M., 2017. "Consequences of a carbon tax on household electricity use and cost, carbon emissions, and economics of household solar and wind," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 159-168.
    8. Casarin, Ariel A. & Delfino, Maria Eugenia, 2011. "Price freezes, durables, and residential electricity demand. Evidence from Greater Buenos Aires," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(5), pages 859-869, September.
    9. Jamil, Faisal & Ahmad, Eatzaz, 2011. "Income and price elasticities of electricity demand: Aggregate and sector-wise analyses," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(9), pages 5519-5527, September.
    10. Tiwari, Aviral Kumar & Menegaki, Angeliki N., 2019. "A time varying approach on the price elasticity of electricity in India during 1975–2013," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 183(C), pages 385-397.
    11. Yasunobu Wakashiro, 2019. "Estimating price elasticity of demand for electricity: the case of Japanese manufacturing industry," International Journal of Economic Policy Studies, Springer, vol. 13(1), pages 173-191, January.
    12. Adewuyi, Adeolu O., 2016. "Determinants of import demand for non-renewable energy (petroleum) products: Empirical evidence from Nigeria," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 95(C), pages 73-93.
    13. Masike, Kabelo & Vermeulen, Cobus, 2022. "The time-varying elasticity of South African electricity demand," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 238(PC).
    14. Blazquez Leticia & Nina Boogen & Massimo Filippini, 2012. "Residential electricity demand for Spain: new empirical evidence using aggregated data," CEPE Working paper series 12-82, CEPE Center for Energy Policy and Economics, ETH Zurich.
    15. Amusa, Hammed & Amusa, Kafayat & Mabugu, Ramos, 2009. "Aggregate demand for electricity in South Africa: An analysis using the bounds testing approach to cointegration," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(10), pages 4167-4175, October.
    16. Loi, Tian Sheng Allan & Loo, Soh Leng, 2016. "The impact of Singapore’s residential electricity conservation efforts and the way forward. Insights from the bounds testing approach," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 735-743.
    17. Kenneth Gillingham & David Rapson & Gernot Wagner, 2016. "The Rebound Effect and Energy Efficiency Policy," Review of Environmental Economics and Policy, Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 10(1), pages 68-88.
    18. Alberini, Anna & Gans, Will & Velez-Lopez, Daniel, 2011. "Residential consumption of gas and electricity in the U.S.: The role of prices and income," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(5), pages 870-881, September.
    19. Lee Lian Ivy-Yap & Hussain Ali Bekhet, 2016. "Modelling the causal linkages among residential electricity consumption, gross domestic product, price of electricity, price of electric appliances, population and foreign direct investment in Malaysi," International Journal of Energy Technology and Policy, Inderscience Enterprises Ltd, vol. 12(1), pages 41-59.
    20. Koch, Steven F. & Nkuna, Blessings & Ye, Yuxiang, 2024. "Income elasticity of residential electricity consumption in rural South Africa," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 131(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Electricity Markets; Hourly Price Elasticity of Demand; Empirical Demand Analysis;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C26 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Instrumental Variables (IV) Estimation
    • L94 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Transportation and Utilities - - - Electric Utilities
    • Q21 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Renewable Resources and Conservation - - - Demand and Supply; Prices
    • Q41 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Energy - - - Demand and Supply; Prices

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:ris:ewikln:2016_007. 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: Sabine Williams (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ewikode.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.