The influence of economic variables on the annual electricity consumption i
n N. Cyprus for the period of 1988-1997 has been investigated. Utilising hi
storical energy consumption, historical economic databases and multiple reg
ression analyses, it was found that the number of customers, the price of e
lectricity and the number of tourists correlate with the annual electricity
consumption. The annual energy consumption was strongly related to the num
ber of the customers, with adjusted R-2 equal to 0.906 and 0.930 if the pri
ce of electricity and the number of tourists were included in the model. Th
e results indicate that the model using the number of customers, the number
of tourists and the electricity prices as regressors has very strong predi
ctive ability and can be used to forecast future annual electricity consump
tion. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.