A nonlinear approach to modelling the residential electricity consumption in Ethiopia

In this paper an attempt is made to model, analyze and forecast the residential electricity consumption in Ethiopia using the self-exciting threshold autoregressive (SETAR) model and the smooth transition regression (STR) model. For comparison purposes, the application was also extended to standard linear models. During the empirical presentation of both models, significant nonlinear effects were found and linearity was rejected. The SETAR model was found out to be relatively better than the linear autoregressive model in out-of-sample point and interval (density) forecasts. Results from our STR model showed that the residual variance of the fitted STR model was only about 65.7% of that of the linear ARX model. Thus, we can conclude that the inclusion of the nonlinear part, which basically accounts for the arrival of extreme price events, leads to improvements in the explanatory abilities of the model for electricity consumption in Ethiopia.