Effect of ICT on electricity consumption in selected developing countries

The advent of information and communication technology (ICT) and the use of these advances by human societies has a duality in consumption of one of the most important energy carriers (electricity). The use of information and communication technology has two effects. First, the use of information and communication technology has led to the replacement of new technologies with old technologies and thus improves the efficiency of electricity consumption and, consequently, reduces their consumption (substitution effect). Second, installation, commissioning and operation of new information and communication technology equipment will increase demand for electricity (income effect). Therefore, the overall effect of information and communication technology on electricity consumption is a function of relative strength of one of the effects. Accordingly, in this paper, the relationship between the use of information and communication technology and electricity consumption in a group of selected developing countries during the period of 2015-1994 was studied. For this purpose, the dynamic panel model with the PMG approach was used. The results presented in two separate models show that increasing the use of information and communication technology will increase per capita consumption of electricity energy in both short and long term in selected developing countries. Also, the results show that in selected developing countries, economic growth is the cause of power consumption, while there is a one-way causality relationship between information and communication technology and electricity consumption and economic growth.