A variable asymptote Boltzmann model for modeling and forecasting energy consumption in China

ABSTRACT

This article proposes a variable asymptote Boltzmann model for modeling and forecasting energy consumption in China. The model has made use of gross domestic product to estimate the saturation level. The historical data on energy consumption in China in the period 1981–2010 has been analyzed by using the variable asymptote Boltzmann model and the original Boltzmann model. The newly proposed variable asymptote Boltzmann model has performed better than the original Boltzmann model in terms of the coefficient of determination, mean absolute percentage error, and root mean square deviation. The variable asymptote Boltzmann model has been applied to forecast energy consumption in China in the period 2011–2015, and the results suggest that China’s energy consumption should increase to 4.38 billion tons of standard coal equivalent, an average annual growth rate of 5.88%.

KEYWORDS:

• Boltzmann model
• China
• energy consumption
• forecast
• gross domestic product