Factors influencing electricity consumption: a review of research methods

Research Question: This paper presents a review of empirical methods used by authors to determine the influence of different groups of factors that influence households’ electricity consumption. Motivation: The question what drives electricity consumption is very complex and requires a systematic approach in analysis of different theory frameworks and factors. In the literature, there are a lot of attempts to classify a huge number of very different factors which could be heterogeneous. The review is built on the existing literature by distinguishing the appropriateness of the usage of different empirical methods for collecting the data on the influence of specific groups of factors. Idea: Based on significant literature review and analysis of different methods used in this field, the aim of this paper is to make classification of the most important factors which have the highest impact on electricity consumption. The factors has been grouped into four groups by authors of the paper. Data: Analysis was conducted by reviewing papers dealing with households’ electricity consumption published in the international journals. Tools: The systematisation of relevant literature was used with the goal of determining the most common and proper methods that were used for determination of the influence of different groups of factors on electricity consumption. Findings: As consumer behaviour in the area of electricity consumption often demands the examination of subjective views of consumers, methods like interviewing, conduction of online/offline surveys, case study and field experiments are commonly used for analysing the influence of cognitive and affective factors, socio-demographic and behavioural. For analysis of the impact of contextual factors with using the large amount of secondary data, statistical and econometric methods are used as the most appropriate ones. Contribution: This paper provides an overview of most appropriate research methods when it comes to examination of the impact of different groups of factors whose influence needs to be empirically proven.