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What Affects Household Electricity Demand in Ecuador: Using Analytical Hierarchy Process to Read Homeowners’ Perception

Abstract:

Analytical hierarchy process was applied to empirically prioritize the relevance of different electrical consumption indicators separated into criterions and sub-criterions, according to the point of view of 543 homeowners’ validated information from the city of Guayaquil. This research offers a reasonable perspective of the major factors that drive electricity usage at home from the point of view of the users. Evaluation of perceptions by social status was also studied dividing the sample in socioeconomic groups. The findings are important, as they differ from most existing literature that normally illustrates the correlation among indicators and the dependent variable. On the criteria level, homeowners believe that the criterions regarding electrical equipment (EE), structural factors (SF) and habits and behaviours (HB) are of more significant importance. Criterion inhabitants’ characteristics (IC) is the least important for all socioeconomic groups with only 11% (5th place), being the lowest value for the high socioeconomic group with less than 9%.