Temperature change and electricity consumption of the group living: A case study of college students

The relationship between energy use and climate change is the center of analysis about mitigation and adaptation. Yet current studies of the electricity-climate relationship focus on developed countries. Little was known about the energy-use behavior in group living. By using college students' monthly electricity-use data from September 2018 to August 2019 in Beijing, China, we build a weighted least square regression model and found a U-shaped relationship between temperature and electricity consumption. The results show that one additional day of temperature exceeding 30 °C would cause a 16.8% increase in monthly electricity consumption with reference to 18–22 °C while one additional day of temperature below −6 °C will increase it by 6%. The magnitudes of temperature effect on electricity are much greater than those in Shanghai and California. Further, we find that building structures, such as windows orientation and floor height, play important roles in the temperature-electricity relationship. Finally, we predict the changes in electricity use in a collection of Representative Concentration Pathways (RCP). It finds that the electricity use in summer in north China would increase by 72.8% in RCP 4.5, 79.5% in RCP6.0, and 91.2% in RCP8.5. Our study could be extended to the urban area in northern China, and indicates how the electricity use would respond to climate change in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Urban Agglomeration, covering 8.1% of China's population and 8.4% of gross domestic product. Climate change impact on electricity use in residential and commercial sectors is significant and varying in regions. To achieve sustainable and environmental-friendly development, building structures could play a more effective role in energy-saving and adaptation to climate change.