Empirical analyses of energy efficiency policies and the cost dynamics of renewable energy
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- A large set of economic policies attempts to improve the cost-benefit calculus of actions that increase the efficiency of electricity consumption or decrease the environmental externalities associated with electricity generation. This dissertation provides three advances in the economic analysis of relevant policies. The first develops a method by which to more comprehensively evaluate consumer-facing energy efficiency policies. A main point of the dissertation is that consumer-facing energy efficiency policies include an embedded behavioral policy and thus may affect the decision-making processes that consumers apply in choosing among alternative energy-consuming goods. These changes in decision-making processes may imply losses in individual-level welfare. Accordingly, policies motivated by externality concerns could yield "negative dividends". This outcome obtains if the policy yields cumulative losses in individual-level welfare that are larger than the gains in externality reductions. The dissertation demonstrates these concepts and the evaluation method by using unique data from a stated choice experiment that studies how participants' choices of hypothetical light bulbs change in response to the Energy Star label. This label highlights energy efficient alternatives in the marketplace. The second advance in the dissertation is a method with which policymakers can design better consumer-facing energy efficiency policy instruments. It explicitly considers the impact of candidate instruments on consumers' decision-making processes. The third and final advance improves methods with which to estimate the cost dynamics of maturing technologies and is most applicable to the assessment of policies supporting the deployment of renewable energy-based electricity generation. Estimates of inter-temporal break-even prices for maturing technologies must reflect expected decreases in the cost of manufacturing capacity, but price guidance in the literature does not include these expectations. The dissertation addresses this gap by developing a central measure of costs, the Economically Sustainable Price (ESP), which can be interpreted as the long-run marginal cost of manufacturing and delivering one unit of output. Along a long-run equilibrium trajectory of manufacturing capacity additions, one would expect prices to equal the ESP. The dissertation provides methods to estimate and forecast ESPs from publicly available cost data. The methods are illustrated with an application to solar photovoltaic (PV) module cost data. Aside from estimating the first cost-based learning curve for solar PV modules, this example provides several policy-relevant findings about the cost- and price-dynamics of this good.
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Form | electronic; electronic resource; remote |
| Extent | 1 online resource. |
| Publication date | 2014 |
| Issuance | monographic |
| Language | English |
Creators/Contributors
| Associated with | Sahoo, Anshuman |
|---|---|
| Associated with | Stanford University, Department of Management Science and Engineering. |
| Primary advisor | Sweeney, James L |
| Thesis advisor | Sweeney, James L |
| Thesis advisor | Beshears, John (John Leonard) |
| Thesis advisor | Reichelstein, Stefan, 1957- |
| Thesis advisor | Weyant, John P. (John Peter) |
| Advisor | Beshears, John (John Leonard) |
| Advisor | Reichelstein, Stefan, 1957- |
| Advisor | Weyant, John P. (John Peter) |
Subjects
| Genre | Theses |
|---|
Bibliographic information
| Statement of responsibility | Anshuman Sahoo. |
|---|---|
| Note | Submitted to the Department of Management Science and Engineering. |
| Thesis | Thesis (Ph.D.)--Stanford University, 2014. |
| Location | electronic resource |
Access conditions
- Copyright
- © 2014 by Anshuman Sahoo
- License
- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 3.0 Unported license (CC BY-NC).
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