The impacts of climate change on residential energy consumption may be modest in relation to changes in technology and patterns of economic activity. But even though adaptability is high in the residential energy sector, greenhouse gas emissions resulting from electrical appliance end-use are growing rapidly and represent the major increase in emissions attributed to the Australian residential sector. The purpose of this paper is to quantify the impacts of greenhouse climate change in the Sydney region on appliance energy consumption, all else being equal.

This paper uses data from a Residential Energy Study (RES) undertaken in the Sydney metropolitan area. During the RES up to seven electrical appliances in 136 households were logged in half-hourly increments over 18 months. Statistical relationships deduced between observed outdoor weather and individual appliance energy consumption were used to define the quantitative climate sensitivities of appliance energy consumption (detailed in another ICB’02 paper by the authors). These statistical dependencies were then applied to an observed baseline climatology (1961-1990) and simulated greenhouse climatology (2031-2060). The latter was obtained from the Australian CSIRO’s Limited Area Model – DARLAM. These analyses underpin a discussion of the potential impacts of climate change on household appliance energy end-use in the Sydney region.

The magnitude of greenhouse climatic impacts depended on the nature of the appliance; cooling devices experienced an increase in energy consumption (31% for space cooling), whereas heating devices experienced a decrease in energy consumption (19% for space heating). The implications of this regional-scale climatic impacts assessment provide further impetus for energy policy and technology adaptation to and mitigation of global climate change.