In the early 2000s, the Republic of Turkey has initiated an ambitious reform program in her electricity market, which requires privatization, liberalization as well as a radical restructuring. The most controversial reason behind, or justification for, recent reforms has been the rapid electricity demand growth; that is to say, the whole reform process has been a part of the endeavors to avoid so-called "energy crisis". Using cointegration analysis and ARIMA modeling, the present article focuses on this issue by both providing an electricity demand estimation and forecast, and comparing the results with official projections. The study concludes, first, that consumers' respond to price and income changes is quite limited and therefore there is a need for * Corresponding author. Tel.: +90-312-2872560 E-mail: erkan@erdogdu.net URL: http://erkan.erdogdu.net/english b The author is working as an Energy Expert in Energy Market Regulatory Authority of the Republic of Turkey. The present article is a part of the dissertation submitted by the author in fulfillment of the requirements for the award of the degree "MSc in Energy Economics and Policy". In October 2005, the author is awarded an "MSc with distinction" by the Department of Economics, University of Surrey (UK). The views, findings and conclusions expressed in this article are entirely those of the author and do not represent in any way the views of any institution he is affiliated with. 2 economic regulation in Turkish electricity market; and second, that the current official electricity demand projections highly overestimate the electricity demand, which may endanger the development of both a coherent energy policy in general and a healthy electricity market in particular.