Demographic, Seasonal and Housing Characteristics Associated with Residential Energy Consumption in Texas, 2010

Lloyd Potter, University of Texas at San Antonio
Lila Valencia, University of Texas at San Antonio
Carlos Valenzuela, University of Texas at San Antonio
Steve White, University of Texas at San Antonio
Jeff Jordan, University of Texas at San Antonio

Understanding the influence of demographic, seasonal, and housing structure characteristics on energy consumption has implications for influencing pro-environmental behaviors in related to energy and in other areas, such as water use, public transit, and recycling. Using household level energy consumption data from a local energy company, housing unit characteristics from the local tax appraisal district and data from both the census and the American Community Survey, we explore the variation in energy consumption at the census tract level of analysis. Variation explained in the average monthly kBTU consumption per housing unit based on demographic and housing unit characteristics depended on the type of season. Essentially, opportunities exist to reduce energy consumption in census tracts based on household demographics during the non-seasonal and summer months, whereas housing unit characteristics play a larger role in energy consumption per housing unit in census tracts during the winter months.