O impacto da mudança climática sobre o consumo de energia elétrica no Estado do Ceará

Abstract

Electricity consumption has a strict relationship with a region's economic development. Recognising the importance of this energy vector for the Ceará State economy, the present study aims at investigating the determinants of the residential and industrial electricity demands in the State of Ceará, with emphasis on the climatic factor, in the period between 2003 and 2013, and also at simulating the effects of the increase in temperature, projected by climate models, on electricity demand for the period between 2014 and 2040, based on the current economy. The residential and industrial demands were related, respectively, with the demands for thermal comfort and the need of cooling down industrial machinery and equipments. The model estimation for both consumption classes was performed on time series data, using the Dynamic Ordinary Least Squares method. As is the case in other studies, in our investigation the demand for both classes showed little sensitivity to variations on their own price as well as to the income level of the population. As for the temperature variable, we concluded that it is an important determining factor on the electricity demand in the Ceará State for both consumption classes analised. The result of the simulation suggests a significant increase on both residential and industrial demands as an adaptive response to the projected climate change for the next decade.