Price elasticity of residential natural gas demand: Evidence from population microdata in Ireland

This paper quantifies the short-run price elasticity of demand for residential natural gas consumption. We use a novel population dataset of natural gas consumption covering all residential consumers connected to the Irish natural gas network. We match retail prices to residential consumers using a representative profile of tariffs. Using supply area information, we match households to geo-referenced weather station data to control for weather effects. Our findings
reveal a short-run elasticity ranging from -0.19 to -0.33. We explore heterogeneity in this effect across regions and household characteristics, finding variation in price response by house type, house size, consumer supply area and consumer meter type.