The RenOnBill partner UNIGE published an open access scientific article on the journal International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, titled Forecasting energy consumption in the EU residential sector.
The paper aims to introduce a top down methodology for the forecasting of residential energy demand in four European countries, namely Germany, Italy, Spain, and Lithuania. The methodology employed to develop the estimation is based on econometric techniques.
The results confirm that the methodology can be applied to the case of Germany, Italy, and Spain, whereas it is not suitable for Lithuania. The analysis of elasticities of the demand with respect to the gross domestic product per capita shows a negative value for Germany, −0.629, and positive values for Italy, 0.837, and Spain, 0.249. The forecasting of consumption shows that Germany and Italy are more sensitive to weather conditions with respect to Spain and an increase in the demand of 8% and 9% is expected in case of cold climatic conditions.