Building back better or locking in carbon? a provincial panel analysis of residential energy demand and low-carbon reconstruction policy in post-earthquake türkiye

Abstract

Post-disaster reconstruction programmes create an irreversible window for embedding or foreclosing residential energy efficiency at scale. This study examines the structural determinants of per capita residential electricity consumption (K_MES) across all 81 provinces of Türkiye over 2013–2022 using a balanced province-year panel. We develop two complementary panel models, both estimated by two-way fixed effects (province + year) with cluster-robust standard errors, and supported by GLS-AR(1) and random-effects GLS robustness checks. Note that K_MES measures the electricity component of residential energy use only; we, therefore, also estimate the building-stock model with a constructed total-energy dependent variable that combines residential electricity (H_MES) and natural-gas consumption (X_DG) in kWh-equivalent units. Model 1 isolates the macroeconomic transmission channel through which exchange-rate volatility shapes residential electricity demand. Because the USD/TRY rate has no cross-sectional variation, its identifying power in two-way fixed effects comes from its interaction with province-level natural-gas-heating exposure (sh_gas × EV_DA). The interaction is robustly negative across all full-sample specifications (β ≈ −0.022, p 0.01), indicating that provinces with greater gas-heating penetration are buffered against currency-depreciation pass-through into electricity demand. Provincial GDP carries the dominant direct macro coefficient (β ≈ 0.27–0.29, p 0.01), establishing income elasticity rather than the exchange rate as the headline aggregate driver. Model 2 decomposes the building stock by structural system, filler material, heating system, and heating fuel. The dominant predictors are the share of electric heating (β ≈ 1.16–1.27, p 0.01) and the share of AC-only heating (β ≈ −1.0 to −1.13, p 0.05), with a total-energy specification reaching R2 = 0.92. In the comparative subsample of the eleven Kahramanmaraş-affected provinces, masonry construction emerges as the dominant pre-disaster predictor of per capita electricity consumption (β = 14.04, p 0.05), revealing structurally distinct stock characteristics that pre-date the February 2023 earthquake. Two re-framings are required. First, since the panel covers 2013–2022, the disaster-province estimates capture pre-disaster structural heterogeneity rather than post-disaster market rupture. Second, the macroeconomic mechanism that prior work attributed to the exchange-rate level is more accurately understood as a fuel-mix-mediated exposure channel. The combined evidence implies that mandatory building-code enforcement and natural-gas grid extension are complementary policy levers in the 488,000-unit Turkish Housing Development Administration reconstruction programme: gas grid expansion reduces the macroeconomic vulnerability of residential energy demand, while masonry-replacement construction standards address the largest pre-disaster structural determinant of energy intensity in the affected region.