Direct Rebound Effect of Electricity Consumption Efficiency Improvement in the Residential Urban Areas of Iran

In order to estimate the direct rebound effect of improvement in electricity consumption efficiency in the residential urban areas in Iran, price elasticity of demand for electrical energy by AIDS model and the social and economic characteristics of households are used in this study. This model is estimated using Seemingly Unrelated Regressions (SUR) analysis of pool data on nearly 180 million urban households in the country during the period 1394 to 1385. The results show that direct rebound effect of efficiency improvement of electricity use in the residential urban areas in Iran is equal to 81% which is considerably higher compared to efficiency improvement rebound effect of other energies used by household. The calculation of direct rebound effect among income groups also shows that the effect among wealthy households is high. This means that the efficiency of electricity consumption improvement, has less saving effect in high-income groups than low and moderate income ones.