Impact of climate on energy sector in economic analysis.

Abstract

This paper presents examples of the uses of climatic data by utilities, public service commissions and the NOAA Center for Environmental Assessment Services to determine econoclimatic energy relationships at the local, state, regional and national levels. A technique based on the linear relationship between heating degree days and natural gas consumption for space heating is used to quantify the interaction of climate and prices on gas consumption. This provides regional estimates of the response of gas consumption to degree days and price.-from Authors