Temperature Variations of Consumption

Electricity consumption depends dramatically on ambient temperature in countries where a lot of heating comes from electricity. In most countries electricity consumption increases in winter because of this usage.  In countries with extensive air conditioning usage the consumption in summer also increases. 

The plot below illustrates the seasonal consumption compared to average temperature in France.

France electricity consumption from 2016 to 2022 showing consumption and the temperature averaged over weather stations spread around the territory.

The following plots illustrate the strong correlation between consumption and temperature. The examples show France and Bulgaria where there is a strong dependence at low ambient temperature for heating in winter and a small dependence for cooling in summer; Greece and Spain where there is a strong consumption dependence for both heating and cooling and Sweden and Norway where the is only a dependence for heating at low temperatures.

Examples of consumption dependence on temperature for countries in different regions of Europe with different weather conditions. The temperature values plotted are averages over many weather stations distributed around the particular country.

Summary of 24 countries in Europe which have a clear dependence of consumption on temperature. The left-hand chart shows the slope of the dependence for low temperatures and the right-hand plot the slope for high temperatures. Some countries, in the northern colder regions of Europe, have zero dependence for high temperature. Countries in southern regions of Europe where it is hot in summer have large dependences at high temperature for cooling.