Climate change impacts on electricity demand in the State of New South Wales, Australia

Global temperature rise due to climate change has become a major concern for the policy makers. Since rising temperature has significant impact on electricity demand, the expansion of the electricity network and related augmentation plan of power industries will be affected due to the change in climatic conditions. This paper proposes an analytical tool to examine the effect of climate change on the electricity demand of New South Wales, Australia. Multiple linear regression analysis has been applied for the historical climatic and non-climatic variables to establish a correlation between per capita electricity demand and associated key variables. Time series analysis is then carried out to predict future temperature and corresponding cooling and heating degree days of New South Wales. Using the proposed analytical tool, per capita electricity demand rise is estimated solely due to temperature change. The results obtained indicate that electricity demands in summer and spring will increase due to climate change. It is found that an increase in temperature alone may lead to 1.36%, 2.72% and 6.14% rise in per capita demand during the summer season and 2.09%, 4.5% and 11.3% rise in per capita demand rise during the spring session of 2030s, 2050s and 2100s respectively.