It is expected that the renewable share of energy generation will rise considerably in the near future. The intermittent and uncertain nature of renewable energy (RE) calls for storage and grid management technologies that can allow for increased power system flexibility. To assist policy makers in designing public policies that incentivize RE generation and a flexible power system based on energy storage and demandside management, better knowledge as to the willingness to pay for the corresponding devices is required. In this paper, we appraise the willingness of a household (HH) to pay for a 1.9 kW peak photovoltaic (PV) system and smart grid devices, namely, a smart meter and a home storage battery. Results indicate that having access to a storage device is key for the HH decision to install a smart meter. We also find that it is beneficial for the HH to install the PV system regardless of the pricing scheme and the ownership of the battery pack. It is, nevertheless, barely desirable to install the battery pack regardless of the presence of the PV system; an outcome pointing to the fact that the high cost of storage is a drawback for the wider use of these systems. When storage is constrained in such a way that only the generated power can be stored, the willingness to install the battery pack reduces even further. The investment decisions made when legislation prohibits net-metering are also analyzed.
{"title":"Willingness to Pay for Solar Panels and Smart Grids","authors":"Tunç Durmaz, A. Pommeret, I. Ridley","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.2983006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2983006","url":null,"abstract":"It is expected that the renewable share of energy generation will rise considerably in the near future. The intermittent and uncertain nature of renewable energy (RE) calls for storage and grid management technologies that can allow for increased power system flexibility. To assist policy makers in designing public policies that incentivize RE generation and a flexible power system based on energy storage and demandside management, better knowledge as to the willingness to pay for the corresponding devices is required. In this paper, we appraise the willingness of a household (HH) to pay for a 1.9 kW peak photovoltaic (PV) system and smart grid devices, namely, a smart meter and a home storage battery. Results indicate that having access to a storage device is key for the HH decision to install a smart meter. We also find that it is beneficial for the HH to install the PV system regardless of the pricing scheme and the ownership of the battery pack. It is, nevertheless, barely desirable to install the battery pack regardless of the presence of the PV system; an outcome pointing to the fact that the high cost of storage is a drawback for the wider use of these systems. When storage is constrained in such a way that only the generated power can be stored, the willingness to install the battery pack reduces even further. The investment decisions made when legislation prohibits net-metering are also analyzed.","PeriodicalId":435947,"journal":{"name":"FEEM: Mitigation","volume":"85 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-06-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122628583","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Bai-Chen Xie, Jie Gao, Shuangying Zhang, Zhongxiang Zhang
China’s unbundling reform in 2002 aimed to introduce competitiveness into the power industry, especially the generation sector, to improve its operational efficiency. Meanwhile, great concern about a range of environmental problems and global climate change increasingly calls for saving energy and abating emissions. Thus, the ability to balance the reduction of carbon emissions with economic benefits may to a great extent determine the competitiveness of power generation sector. This study first adopts the game cross-efficiency approach to evaluate the environmental efficiency of the generation sectors in China’s 30 provinces. It then employs a system generalized method of moments model to explore the determinants of their performance while eliminating the associated endogeneity problem. The results of this first study combining the two methods indicate that efficiency gaps do exist among the regions even though overall efficiency has been improved. Despite the negative correlation between environmental efficiency and the thermal power ratio, the power mix should be adjusted gradually. The average firm size and capacity utilization rates are positive factors boosting the environmental efficiency. The incentive policies for clean energy development should be differentiated across regions according to their power mix and self-sufficiency ratio.
{"title":"What Factors Affect the Competiveness of Power Generation Sector in China? An Analysis Based on Game Cross-Efficiency","authors":"Bai-Chen Xie, Jie Gao, Shuangying Zhang, Zhongxiang Zhang","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.2945337","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2945337","url":null,"abstract":"China’s unbundling reform in 2002 aimed to introduce competitiveness into the power industry, especially the generation sector, to improve its operational efficiency. Meanwhile, great concern about a range of environmental problems and global climate change increasingly calls for saving energy and abating emissions. Thus, the ability to balance the reduction of carbon emissions with economic benefits may to a great extent determine the competitiveness of power generation sector. This study first adopts the game cross-efficiency approach to evaluate the environmental efficiency of the generation sectors in China’s 30 provinces. It then employs a system generalized method of moments model to explore the determinants of their performance while eliminating the associated endogeneity problem. The results of this first study combining the two methods indicate that efficiency gaps do exist among the regions even though overall efficiency has been improved. Despite the negative correlation between environmental efficiency and the thermal power ratio, the power mix should be adjusted gradually. The average firm size and capacity utilization rates are positive factors boosting the environmental efficiency. The incentive policies for clean energy development should be differentiated across regions according to their power mix and self-sufficiency ratio.","PeriodicalId":435947,"journal":{"name":"FEEM: Mitigation","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130662005","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This paper is, to our knowledge, the first paper in climate economics to consider the combination of spatial heat transport and polar amplification. We simplified the problem by stratifying the Earth into latitude belts and assuming, as in North et al. (1981), that the two hemispheres were symmetric. Our results suggest that it is possible to build climate economic models that include the very real climatic phenomena of heat transport and polar amplification and still maintain analytical tractability. We derive optimal fossil fuel paths under heat transport with and without polar amplification. We show that the optimal tax function depends not only on the distribution of welfare weights but also on the distribution of population across latitudes, the distribution of marginal damages across latitudes and cross latitude interactions of marginal damages, and climate dynamics. We also determine optimal taxes per unit of emission and show that, in contrast to the standard results suggesting spatially uniform emission taxes, poorer latitudes should be taxed less per unit emissions than richer latitudes.
据我们所知,这篇论文是气候经济学中第一篇考虑空间热输送和极性放大的结合的论文。我们简化了这个问题,将地球分层成纬度带,并像North et al.(1981)那样假设两个半球是对称的。我们的结果表明,有可能建立包括非常真实的热输送和极地放大气候现象的气候经济模型,并且仍然保持分析的可追溯性。我们得出了在有和没有极性放大的热传输下的最佳化石燃料路径。研究表明,最优税收函数不仅取决于福利权重的分布,还取决于人口的跨纬度分布、边际损害的跨纬度分布、边际损害的跨纬度相互作用以及气候动态。我们还确定了每单位排放的最优税,并表明,与建议在空间上统一排放税的标准结果相反,较贫穷纬度的每单位排放的税应低于较富裕纬度。
{"title":"Spatial Heat Transport, Polar Amplification and Climate Change Policy","authors":"W. Brock, A. Xepapadeas","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.2740994","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2740994","url":null,"abstract":"This paper is, to our knowledge, the first paper in climate economics to consider the combination of spatial heat transport and polar amplification. We simplified the problem by stratifying the Earth into latitude belts and assuming, as in North et al. (1981), that the two hemispheres were symmetric. Our results suggest that it is possible to build climate economic models that include the very real climatic phenomena of heat transport and polar amplification and still maintain analytical tractability. We derive optimal fossil fuel paths under heat transport with and without polar amplification. We show that the optimal tax function depends not only on the distribution of welfare weights but also on the distribution of population across latitudes, the distribution of marginal damages across latitudes and cross latitude interactions of marginal damages, and climate dynamics. We also determine optimal taxes per unit of emission and show that, in contrast to the standard results suggesting spatially uniform emission taxes, poorer latitudes should be taxed less per unit emissions than richer latitudes.","PeriodicalId":435947,"journal":{"name":"FEEM: Mitigation","volume":"35 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121167532","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}