This research investigates the relationship between Turkish residential electricity consumption, household total final consumption expenditure and residential electricity prices by applying the structural time series model to annual data over the period from 1960 to 2008. Household total final consumption expenditure, real energy prices and an underlying energy demand trend are found to be important drivers of Turkish residential electricity demand with the estimated short run and the long run total final consumption expenditure elasticities being 0.38 and 1.57, respectively, and the estimated short run and long run price elasticities being -0.09 and -0.38, respectively. Moreover, the estimated underlying energy demand trend, (which, as far as is known, has not been investigated before for the Turkish residential sector) should be of some benefit to Turkish decision makers in terms of energy planning. It provides information about the impact of past policies, the influence of technical progress, the impacts of changes in consumer behaviour and the effects of changes in economic structure. Furthermore, based on the estimated equation, and different forecast assumptions, it is predicted that Turkish residential electricity demand will be somewhere between 48 and 80 TWh by 2020 compared to 40 TWh in 2008. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.