The impact of age groups on consumption of residential electricity in Azerbaijan

In this study, we examined the impacts of population age groups of 0-14, 15-64 and 65-above on residential electricity consumption in Azerbaijan within the STIRPAT framework. Unlike many prior studies of STIRPAT framework, we analyzed this impact, employing co-integration and error correction method in order to rule out possible spurious estimation results caused by non-stationary data used. Results from the Autoregressive Distributed Lags Bounds Testing approach, which is the preferred method among alternatives in the case of small samples, indicated that the affluence together with age groups have significant impact on the residential electricity consumption in Azerbaijan and the biggest effect comes from the age group of 15-64, which is the working age population. Another finding of the study is that if there is any (economic, social, environmental, etc.) shock to the system that initially affect residential electricity consumption and affluence, the whole shock will be absorbed by the system less than in one year. Findings of the study may be useful in making appropriate decisions in the fields of residential electricity consumption.