The Estimation of Electricity Demand Function and Prediction of its Consumption to 2025 in Iran

The history of electricity industry dates back to one hundred years ago. In Iran, the electricity industry is transiting from the typical monopoly to the competitive markets and a new paradigm is the producers compete with each other to sell the energy. In the present research, the long-term and short-term models of electrical energy in Iran has been estimated using time-series data and correlation techniques in econometrics specifically the dynamic self-explanatory models with auto regressive distributed lag model (ARDL) and error correction model (ECM). After estimating the electricity demand function, the prediction of the whole country electricity demand was carried out. The results confirmed the inelasticity of electricity demand in proportion to the electricity price indicated by other studies in Iran and other countries. According to the Power Ministry statistics, the aggregate electricity demand has been 176230 million kw/h in 2009 which after implementing the targeting subsidies plan in the first year, this number has been decreased to 170067 million kw/h with a 3.5 % decline in the electricity demand. Finally, the aggregate electricity demand is expected to increase to 240020 million kw/h by the year 2025.