Detecting changes in price-sensitivity of household electricity consumption: The impact of the global energy crisis on implicit demand response behavior of Finnish detached households

Abstract

The energy transition combined with the ongoing global energy crisis and soaring inflation has pushed household electricity prices to all-time high levels. The year 2022 was especially rough for customers due to significant electricity price increases, leading to, for instance, a fall in the European consumer confidence index to a new all-time low. When dealing with very high electricity prices, the only things household can do to reduce their utility bills is to reduce consumption, invest in self-generation, or change to a time-based electricity contract and shift consumption to cheaper times. In this study, we present a methodology for analysis of changes in customer electricity use behavior and price-sensitivity based on smart electricity meter data, correlation analysis and the k-means clustering algorithm. Electricity meter data is further used to cluster customers into different primary heating type groups to analyze whether there exist behavioral change differences between these groups. As a case study we utilize these methods to investigate the impact of the global energy crisis and rapidly risen electricity prices of 2022 on the price-sensitivity of Finnish detached house electricity use. Based on our results, almost a third of the analyzed households had a statistically significant increase in implicit demand response behavior from January to December of 2022. The largest shares of households with a statistically significant increase in price-sensitivity were in night-time water heating, oil, and ground-source heating groups.