Investigating the factors influencing the demand for electricity in service providing sector using Firefly and Cuckoo algorithms

One of the most important components the negligence of which may cause serious bias in the estimates of production in any sector is power input. Nowadays, due the development of technology in service providing sectors and production variety, low-quality fuels have been replaced with quality energies such as electricity. The analysis of energy demand in service sector is one of the most important issues in the developing countries. Therefore the application of analytic methods for the recognition and understanding energy demand becomes important. In this article, first we will estimate the electricity demand function between 1989 and 2014 using firefly and cuckoo algorithms. Then according to performance evaluation criteria, the estimated model is used with firefly algorithm to study the factors influencing the demand for electricity in this sector. The results show that the number of users is in direct correlation with demand for electricity. Cross-price elasticity is estimated as 0.4 which indicates the slow replacement of gas with electricity. The direct relationship between the added value of service sector and electricity consumption also reveals the necessity of electricity input in service sectors. Due to the low estimated price elasticity, we can’t expect that the increase in electricity price leads to the rapid decrease of electricity consumption in this sector. The number of users as a variable has direct correlation with electricity consumption.