Semiparametric modeling of the spatiotemporal trends in natural gas consumption: Methodology, results, and consequences

摘要

Abstract Household consumption of natural gas is usually considered to be quite stable as cooking, space, and water heating belong to basic needs. The improvement of technologies together with possibilities of switching to alternative sources can, however, lead to a decreasing consumption trend. Knowing more about such trend, especially of its spatial distribution, can be useful for strategic planning. In this paper, we describe a general statistical methodology allowing to study the spatiotemporal behavior of consumption. It is based on semiparametric modeling. Formalized error and sensitivity analyses are part of the methodology. Presented methods are illustrated on large‐scale data from the Czech Republic.