Impacts of Climate Change on Seasonal Residential Electricity Consumption by 2050 and Potential Adaptation Options in Alexandria Egypt

摘要

Climate change and associated more frequent, hot or cold, extreme/weather events, as well as increasing temperature may increase future residential demand for electricity for heating and cooling purposes. The paper in hand intends to assess potential impacts of increasing temperature attributed to climate change on seasonal residential electricity consumption in Alexandria city, Egypt. Additionally, it aims to identify and discuss potential soft and hard adaptation options to such impacts. For this purpose, seasonal changes in electricity consumption were investigated. For this purpose, data on monthly residential electricity consumption, population size and income levels at district level as well as maximum monthly temperature in Alexandria city, Egypt over the period 2007-2016 were collected. This is followed by developing a panel-data model to simulate influence of temperature on residential electricity consumption. It was found that there is a significant growth trend over the study period as well as considerable seasonal variation with summer season experienced significant increase in consumption. It was found that increasing temperature, under RCP 2.6 and RCP 8.5, may contribute to significant increase in residential summer electricity consumption by 2050. Different adaptation options to such an increase in consumption, both soft and hard, have been identified and assessed.