The effect of interest in renewable energy on US household electricity consumption: An analysis using Google Trends data

Abstract

Google Trends is a service based on big data that shows the frequency of global searches in real time. As an index of individual interest, Google Trends has been used in various research fields. This study estimates the relationship between household electricity consumption and individuals' interest in energy based on Google Trends data. In particular, from the viewpoint of renewable energy, we compare the relationship between electricity consumption and the "renewable" Google Trends keyword with that between electricity consumption and other keywords. A model is constructed to examine the effect on household consumption of substituting electricity with renewable energy. We find that household electricity consumption decreases by 16.017 million kWh for every one unit increase in search of the "renewable" keyword. This study therefore illustrates that Google Trends enables the estimation of driving factors that are difficult to uncover when analyzing with various economic indicators. (C) 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.