Modelling Residential Electricity Consumption in India: Theory, Indicators and Bottom-Up Estimation

Residential electricity consumption (REC) in India has been increasing rapidly and contributes to over a quarter of India’s total electricity consumption. Attempts to model REC have generally followed top-down macroeconomic approaches, mostly focusing on planning at the national level. However, models for electricity and utility services that can be used at the local levels is important for sustainability planning. A district level modelling method is developed using novel theoretical framework and relevant datasets. Models for different districts is built to understand the differences in the factors affecting electricity consumption. The thesis proposes a novel bottom-up model for modelling electricity consumption that is suitable for local level electricity planning.