Household ownership of electric room air conditioners

The rapid increase in the number of electric room air conditioners (AC units) per household, which may affect summer peak demand for electricity, may be due in part to their relatively low purchase prices. The present study attempted to measure the effects of purchase prices on the household's choice of the number of AC units, using a subsample of the 1992 survey by the Central Research Institute of Electric Power Industry in Japan. This survey provides data on residential AC-unit holdings and electricity consumption, which are used to estimate a probabilistic discrete choice model of residential AC units. The empirical results show that the cost of air conditioning has significant and adverse impacts on the choice of the number of AC units. (C) 1998 Published by Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.