Future of residential electricity demand in Saudi Arabia and the role of energy efficiency in 2060′s net zero pledge

With the ambitious goal that Saudi Arabia has set to reach net zero by 2060, reducing domestic electricity consumption, and hence curbing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions is critical. Since the residential sector is the biggest consumer of electricity in the Kingdom, understanding how its electricity consumption would evolve in the long-term horizon can help policymakers to design policies through which the sector can contribute effectively to that target. The aim of this paper is twofold, forecasting the residential electricity consumption to 2060, and assessing the potential impact of energy efficiency (EE) on curbing the electricity demand over the forecast period. We construct a forecast model using the Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA) technique and historical residential electricity consumption data. We then build on this forecast to assess the potential impact of EE in curbing the electricity demand growth over the forecast period using a bottom-up building stock model tailored for Saudi Arabia. The EE assessment is divided into targeting future residential houses and renovating existing houses. The analysis shows that future electricity consumption is expected to pick up a steady upward trend over the next four decades. The EE assessment shows that tightening EE standards, specifically building insulation, air conditioning, lighting, and white good efficiencies, can reduce electricity consumption over the forecast horizon by 18 % and 2060′s consumption by 30 %. This EE enhancement results in avoiding 690 MtCO2 over the next four decades, and 39 MtCO2 of 2060′s potential CO2 emissions.