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Energy Efficiency Initiative of the RFF Center for Climate and Electricity Policy RFF NY Breakfast Series November 9, 20

Energy Efficiency Initiative of the RFF Center for Climate and Electricity Policy RFF NY Breakfast Series November 9, 2010. Why Energy Efficiency?. High costs and siting issues associated with increasing supply and delivery capacity, particularly for electricity

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Energy Efficiency Initiative of the RFF Center for Climate and Electricity Policy RFF NY Breakfast Series November 9, 20

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  1. Energy Efficiency Initiative of the RFFCenter for Climate and Electricity PolicyRFF NY Breakfast SeriesNovember 9, 2010

  2. Why Energy Efficiency? • High costs and siting issues associated with increasing supply and delivery capacity, particularly for electricity • Desire to meet our climate mitigation goals • Concerns about energy security

  3. Energy Efficiency (EE) Potential • Numerous studies suggest lots of potential to reduce energy consumption and save money • McKinsey – 23% reduction in 2020 • National Research Council – 17-20 % reduction in 2020 • Residential and commercial buildings (64%) • Industrial processes (25%) • Transportation (11%) • What are the barriers that prevent us from realizing this potential? • What are the policies that will take us to a more energy efficient future?

  4. EE Policy Options • Efficient Energy Pricing • Price CO2 and let consumers see the price • Efficiency Standards • Appliances • Buildings • Energy efficiency resource standards • Information • Labels • Audits • Nudges • Incentives • Rebates • Low interest loans • Tax incentives

  5. Evaluation of Past Electricity EE Policies • Utility energy efficiency DSM programs to promote energy efficiency (EE) have been around since 1970’s • How much electricity do they save and at what cost? • Range of recent savings estimates: • EIA 861 annual savings in 2007: 1.8 percent national average (some utilities exceed 10 percent) • CEC annual savings in CA in 2005: 1.2 percent (all electricity) or 1.8 percent (Res & Com only) • Efficiency Vermont: 2.5 percent incremental savings in 2008 • Range of recent average cost estimates • ACEEE (2009): 2.5 cents per kWh • Auffhammer , Blumstein and Fowlie (based on reevaluation of L&K): 5.1 to 14.6 cents per kWh • How have costs varied with level of effort/size of program? • Are there increasing or decreasing returns to scale? • As we pursue new EE policies, important to understand effectiveness and cost effectiveness of past efforts

  6. Our Approach • Difficult part of evaluating efficiency savings is estimating baseline energy consumption and accounting for free riders, spillovers and rebound effect. • Most evaluations rely on engineering methods to some degree and standard net to gross ratios to deal with free riders. • This study uses an econometric approach to isolate the effects of current and past DSM spending on year-to-year growth in electricity demand. • Approach should account for free-riders, spillover and rebound • Uses data from EIA and data we collected from relevant states on rate-payer funded EE spending.

  7. Ratepayer Funded Energy Efficiency Expenditures

  8. Gnarly Statistical Issue • Basic model assumes that DSM spending is exogenous. • If utilities with higher demand growth spend more on EE DSM – this would bias our effectiveness estimates downward • Need instruments for contemporaneous EE DSM that are exogenous. • Instruments include: • LCV score for congressional representative in utility service territory • % of voters in service territory that voted for Republican candidate in last presidential election • We are still in the process of addressing this endogeneity problem, but our early attempts suggest it is important and addressing it lowers estimates of cost.

  9. Average Cost Effectiveness and Percent Energy Savings (preliminary) Relevant Comparisons: National average retail electricity price in 2006: 9.1 cents Levelized cost of energy of new baseload generation capacity: 9.0 cents Levelized cost of energy of new peaking capacity: 13.0 cents

  10. Percent Energy Savings and Average Cost (models 1 and 1a)

  11. Next Steps on EE • Deeper look at particular EE policies to understand what has worked, what hasn’t work and what might be promising for the future • Initial focus on creative financing schemes for EE investment • Find partners who run programs who are willing to • provide data to enable ex post evaluation of existing policies at finer detail • cooperate for randomized controlled experiment of program effectiveness • Use McKinsey cost curves as launching point for study of barriers to EE investments in commercial and industrial settings. • Understanding household psychology and role of behavioral economics in energy consumption/efficiency decisions • Enhancing price sensitivity

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