Geospatial and temporal estimation of climatic, end-use demands, and socioeconomic drivers of energy consumption in the residential sector in Ecuador

Abstract

It is widely acknowledged that the drivers for energy consumption in the residential sector are ambient temperature, energy demand, population density, and socio-economic conditions. However, there are no studies in the literature assessing the temporal and spatial distribution of these drivers for a region or country. The decision-making process of the energy transition will be enhanced by using geospatial-resolved and temporal-explicit energy consumption drivers. This study estimates the climatic, end-use demands, and socio-economic drivers of energy consumption in the residential sector of Ecuador at a high spatio-temporal resolution between 2010 and 2020. This research uses publicly available datasets to calculate seven energy consumption drivers in the residential sector of Ecuador: (1) calibrated gridded population density at 1 km2 resolution; (2) validated gridded space heating demand at 1 km2 resolution; (3) validated gridded space cooling demand at 1 km2 resolution; (4) validated gridded water heating demand at 1 km2 resolution; (5) calibrated gridded gross domestic product at 1 km2 resolution; (6) calibrated gridded gross domestic product per capita at 1 km2 resolution; and (7) calibrated regional human development index, at city level. Disaggregation of the drivers at a high spatial resolution for the entire country in a range of 10 years was considered. The final high-1 km2 resolution results can be used for the evaluation of different energy policies in terms of long-term planning and in techno-economic modelling of energy systems and decarbonisation pathways.