Households' electricity consumption efficiency of an ageing population: A DEA analysis for the EU-28.

The consumption of electricity has been increasing in the last decades, imposing multiple challenges at environmental, economic, and social level. Therefore, energy efficiency in several sectors of the economy has become one of the main goals for policy makers and society in general. In addition, the increase of an ageing population and the changes in their consumption patterns also impact the electricity consumption in the residential sector creating additional challenges in this sector. These challenges are even more notorious in Europe where this demographic shift is already moving at an alarming pace. This paper aims to assess the efficiency of electricity consumption of the households of an ageing population in the 28 countries of the European Union for the period between 2005 and 2016, through the employment of the method Data Envelopment Analysis. Main results indicate that the countries which have higher investment in energy saving measures and renewable electricity generation present high efficiency scores for the whole period under analysis. On the other hand, the member states with a larger percentage of an ageing population, are also the ones presenting the lowest efficiency scores. For an improved performance, policies should account for the right combination between the households' electricity consumption efficiency and policies that address the needs of the elderly at a local level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]