What Does it Take to Heat a New Room? Estimating Utility Demand in a Home

Abstract

In a residential home, energy consumption is closely related to the outdoor temperature and size of the house. In a home of a given size, fuel consumption varies fairly predictably through the year. When homeowners add a room, other things being equal, energy consumption should increase. This dataset permits students to estimate the energy demand, make forecasts for future months, and investigate other relationships.

The dataset contains natural gas and electricity usage data for a single-family residence in the Boston area from September 1990 through May 1997, accompanied by monthly climatological data. The dataset is useful for illustrating the concepts and techniques of central tendency, dispersion, time series analysis, correlation, simple and multiple regression, and variable transformations.

• Forecasting
• Measurement
• Regression
• Time series
• Variable transformation

Acknowledgments

I would like to acknowledge considerable help from Bob Hayden and Norton Starr. Participation at last year's New England Isolated Statisticians' Meeting was part of the inspiration for this work.