The industrial and commercial demand for electricity under time-of-use pricing

In this paper we have developed and estimated the demand for electricity by an industrial (commercial) firm subject to time-of-use (TOU) pricing of electric power. In the application we use a quadratic production function and directly incorporate into the production process the restrictions that some inputs cannot vary over the day. We show that the TOU structure implies a unique set of parameter restrictions across the demand functions for inputs.     

The efficiency of TVA power distributors

This study utilizes linear programming and regression for identifying distributors of Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) power that deviate from the normal efficiency levels and for listing distributor attributes that affect these efficiencies. The conclusions are: (1) most TVA distributors are reasonably efficient; however, they appear to be more efficient with respect to technical and scale measures than with respect to cost and allocation measures; (2) TVA distributors tend to over use labor and capital, but utilize purchased wholesale power appropriately; (3) TVA distributors display increasing, decreasing and constant returns to scale, depending on observation; and (4) firm attributes that impact efficiencies the most are: distribution of utilities other than electricity, state location, service area size, the relative amount of power distributed to small customers, the ratio of small customers to large customers and the total amount of electrical energy distributed. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

PROMOTING INNOVATION IN THE ELECTRICITY INDUSTRY

Smart metering can bring significant benefits to electricity markets by allowing customers to reduce demand or increase supply when generation capacity is temporarily scarce. To reap the full efficiency and environmental benefits of this technology, regulators must allow price volatility and free entry into the market. The efficiency gains are enormous as both demand and supply will be affected by both temporary and longer‐lasting price changes. Experiments have shown the value of this approach.     

Productivity differences in multiple output industries: An empirical application to electricity distribution

Given that electricity distribution is undertaken via a network, it is expected that costs of production are affected both by the nature of the network and the volume of physical output distributed via the network. This two-dimensional concept of firm size, that is involving network size (number of customers) and the level of physical output (kWh), also corresponds to the distinction between productivity measures of returns to density and returns to scale.This approach has been used to specify a restricted multioutput cost function and to estimate this function for the Norwegian electricity distribution industry through the use of a flexible functional form (translog). The results indicate that no economies of scale are present in the industry even for small plants when measured correctly, but that economics of density are present.     

Pitfalls in estimating the X-factor: The case of energy transmission regulation in Brazil

In Brazil, which has one of the biggest energy systems in the world, the National Electricity Regulatory Agency (Agência Nacional de Energia Elétrica – ANEEL) regulates the generation, transmission, distribution and commercialization of electricity. As a key step in running the incentive regulation regime, the regulator applies a DEA-based Malmquist index for estimating the X-factor, which reflects productivity gains that can be expected across all companies involved in the industry. This paper investigates the way the X-factor was estimated in 2015 by ANEEL in the transmission sector concerning the review period 2009–2014. The regulator applies a modified version of the Malmquist index developed by Ray and Desli [1] and also adapts the bootstrapping method of Simar and Wilson [2] to generate confidence intervals for an estimate of the X-factor. Analyzing ANEEL's approach, we have discovered a number of serious analytical and computational shortcomings, which we demonstrate in the paper. On this basis, we address the effect of the estimated X-factor on social welfare, having the final customers to pay a higher price for electricity than they were supposed to.     

基于客户价值和感知服务质量的电力客户分级服务模式

传统的电力客户分类偏重于客户的社会价值,忽视了其经济价值,不利于客户满意度和供电企业社会及经济效益的提升。本文提出基于客户价值的电力客户分类方法,将客户用电贡献、客户用电规范性、客户合作等三个维度作为分类标准,以此全面衡量客户价值。针对现有电力客户服务中的不足,借鉴顾客服务感知质量理论,从可靠性、响应性、保证性、移情性和有形性等五个方面构建了电力客户服务策略组合,并提出了针对不同级别客户的差异化服务策略。     

Determinants of price mark‐up tolerance for green electricity – lessons for environmental marketing strategies from a study of residential electricity customers in Germany

This paper develops hypotheses on the effects of various attitudinal and perceptual variables as well as socio‐demographic characteristics of residential electricity customers on an individual's willingness to pay a mark‐up for electricity generated from renewable energy sources compared with the price due for electricity from conventional sources. The hypotheses are tested with data from a standardized telephone survey of 238 household electricity consumers in Germany. 53.4% of the participants are willing to pay a mark‐up for green electricity. 26.1% report a price tolerance equal to a 5–10% increase in their current electricity bill. Binary logistic and ordinal regression analyses indicate that price tolerance for green electricity is particularly influenced by attitudes (1) towards environmental issues and (2) towards one's current power supplier, (3) perceptions of the evaluation of green energy by an individual's social reference groups, (4) household size and (5) current electricity bill level. The findings are used to derive suggestions for energy related informational activities of public institutions, green marketing strategies of energy companies and future consumer research regarding demand for pro‐environmental goods. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

Sind positiv eingestellte Kunden generell bereit, mehr zu zahlen?

At first sight it appears plausible that customers who display more positive evaluative reactions to a company, which previously had sold goods to them (=?supplier-related attitudes [SRA] such as customer satisfaction or loyalty), generally should be willing to pay higher prices for additional offerings of this supplier than their counterparts with less positive SRA. However, sizes of the respective correlations reported in past empirical research diverge considerably. Therefore, two empirical studies were conducted to explore the extent to which eight socio-demographic and psychographic customer characteristics influence relationships between SRA and willingness to pay intentions in the sense that the characteristics systematically increase or decrease (moderate) the considered relationships. In a first study of 238 customers of power companies, four characteristics (age, female gender, household size, electricity bill) were found to significantly negatively moderate the relationship between customers’ attitude toward their electricity supplier and their price tolerance for “green electricity” and one characteristic (involvement) was detected to have a significant negative moderating influence. A second study of 319 mobile communication customers suggested that customers’ involvement and relationship length with their current mobile services supplier positively moderated the association between the customers’ attitude toward their supplier and willingness to pay for a packet offer of their mobile service provider, whereas female gender exerted a negative moderating influence. The results imply that companies should conduct analyses aiming at the identification of socio-demo- and psychographic moderators or customer segments with heterogeneous impacts of SRA on behavioral price intentions respectively as part of their marketing planning process.     

State and Local Electric Utility Taxes:

ABSTRACT Competitive forces emerging nationally across the electric utility sector as a result of actual and anticipated deregulatory activity have forced the industry, various governmental units, and the general public to consider a number of important issues. One major concern is the extent to which state and local taxes imposed on the major investor-owned firms, traditionally embedded in regulated rates, will affect their competitive position relative to challenges from nonregulated competitors offering intrastate or interstate electricity sales. The most likely trend is tax revenue reduction accompanied by some efforts at revenue neutrality, as investor-owned firms lose their monopoly status in a more market-oriented environment and compete with smaller finns with relatively lower cost structures. The trend will also include customer-based taxation shifting the burden from the providers of electricity to the customers, with the providers remaining as tax collectors.     

Efficient Intertemporal Utility Pricing under Uncertainty

Electric utilities today face increasing competition from substitutes for utility-generated power. As a result, utilities are being forced to reevaluate their pricing policies to address competition from other fuels and potential customer ‘bypass’ of the utility. This paper extends the analysis of second-best utility pricing to explicitly account for both the short- and long-run price responses of customers with competitive alternatives to utility-generated power. The presence of long-run substitution opportunities reduces the optimal percentage mark-up of price over marginal cost for noncore customers. Uncertainty concerning the substitution response of noncore electricity customers also tends to reduce the optimal price mark-up. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

WHY ARE TRADE BARRIERS SO LOW?

The political economy literature suggests that tariff rates should be high because the gains to producers from protection are enormous while the welfare costs are small. This paper presents and evaluates six possible explanations for the relatively low tariffs we see today in most developed countries.     

Reform and Efficiency Gains in the New Zealand Electrical Supply Industry

As part of a general program of market-based reform, New Zealand transformed the electrical supply industry from state-owned to commercially-oriented power companies. This paper tests the hypothesis that such privatization is efficiency-improving. A translog cost function is specified and estimated with controls for system (engineering) characteristics and environmental variables, and it is found that the reforms had substantial cost-reducing effects. The reforms are found to have benefitted customers, with the real price of electricity falling 16.4 percent, over the period.     

Eco-efficiency changes of the electricity and gas sectors across 28 European countries: A value-based data envelopment analysis productivity approach

This paper assesses the relative eco-efficiency changes in the electricity and gas sector (E&G)' production and consumption chains in 28 European countries. We propose a novel robustness assessment for the productivity index, specifically adjusted to value-based data envelopment analysis. Overall, results indicate that total factor productivity gains have been mainly driven by the catch-up effect across all chains of the E&G sector. When a more demanding perspective concerning negative environmental externalities is adopted, we find that the number of European countries that achieved productivity gains across all chains decreases. Besides, results depict the existence of lower productivity gains for the direct production chain when compared with the direct and indirect supply chains of the E&G sector. Germany, Luxembourg, and Belgium were consistently viewed as innovators across all chains, according to the environmental perspective. Several Eastern Europe countries usually viewed as policy laggards that resisted adopting the ambitious European decarbonization targets, showed total factor productivity gains in the supply chain of the E&G sector under a more environmental demanding perspective. Czechia was the only country with productivity losses across all chains, due to increasing coal-fired electricity generation in the time horizon assessed. The current partial return to coal as a source of electricity, due to the geopolitical tensions between Russia and Europe, brings additional challenges to the enhancement of the eco-efficiency of the European E&G sector.     

电力重要客户定制服务成本回收策略研究

随着电力客户尤其是电力重要客户对电力服务的要求日益提高,传统电力服务的积弊不断暴露,客户满意度难以提高,供电企业良好的社会形象也难以塑造,服务成本补偿机制的缺失是造成这一问题的重要原因之一。本文基于二元价值结构理论,分析了基础服务和增值服务两类电力服务,并对回收服务成本的可行性和必要性进行了论述。文章对重要客户和普通客户关于两类电力服务的诉求和支付能力及意愿进行比较分析,建立供电企业重要客户服务定价-服务质量矩阵,比较单独定价和组合定价两种成本回收策略,提出针对电力重要客户采取组合定价策略,从而实现供电企业和客户的双赢。     

中小企业信用担保问题初探——不对称信息下建设中小企业信用担保体制的必要性和可行性分析

本文分析目前主要的间接融资渠道(银行信贷),通过分别考虑风险和信息成本来研究银行惜贷问题,指出通过风险溢价和政府补贴的方式来促进银行扩大放贷,以解决中小企业融资问题的局限性。通过对信用担保体制的机理信息经济学分析及其功能分析,说明建立中小企业信用担保机制对于解决中小企业融资困难的必要性和可行性。     

Econometric analysis of residential time-of-use electricity pricing experiments

This paper adapts the two-stage neo-classical model of consumer behavior to the analysis of time-of-use pricing of electricity. Emphasis is placed upon the relationship between partial elasticities, which can be accurately estimated from the first stage, and total elasticities, which can be estimated only by using less reliable information to estimate the second stage. Three functional forms are implemented with data from the Wisconsin Pricing Experiment. Results indicate that (1) the CES and generalized Leontief functional forms are preferred, (2) price elasticities vary substantially with price, and (3) peak and off-peak electricity are partial substitutes but total complements.     

价值链管理在提高顾客价值途径中的应用

在竞争激烈的当今社会,顾客获取信息的方便、快捷,消费知识的丰富,购买理念的多样化,企业的生产经营活动从以产品为导向转变为以顾客为导向,企业竞争优势的培养围绕顾客价值来展开。企业要保留或扩大现有市场份额,保持顾客的忠诚,提高顾客的满意度,需要寻找提高顾客价值的途径。文中利用价值链分析方法,系统分析了企业提高顾客价值的途径,希望在提高顾客价值的同时,能够给企业带来利润。     

小型生活污水厂运行管理中存在的问题及对策分析

以一具体高校小型生活污水处理厂运行管理为例,提出小型生活污水处理厂与大中型污水处理厂相比在运行管理中存在的污水水质波动、运行费用偏高、管道锈蚀、长假期间运行及假期结束后污水厂如何快速恢复正常生产等问题,分析了这些问题产生的原因,并结合污水处理厂运行管理实际提出了相应的解决对策,以提高小型污水处理厂的运行管理水平和污水处理效果。     

Sustainability of population growth: a case study of urban settlements in Israel

One of the most sensitive criteria for gauging the degree of socio-economic prosperity of an urban settlement is the ability to sustain stable rates of population growth by attracting newcomers and retaining existing population. The present paper argues that after reaching a particular size (on the average, 20–30, 000 residents), urban localities n Israel tend to experience substantial changes in components of their annual population growth. Starting with this inflection point, the growth of settlements gradually becomes less dependent on natural causes (birth and death rates) than on the ability to attract newcomers and retain current residents. On the basis of this conclusion, a strategy of "redirecting priorities" to developing the peripheral regions of the country is suggested. This strategy proposes the concentration of state and local financial resources on selected development Settlements until they reach the above population threshold and become more attractive for newcomers, followed by the sequential transfer of this support to other small urban localities in frontier areas. Although the present analysis was restricted to urban settlements in Israel, the mode of analysis and its applications for planning policy may be applicable to regional and urban physical planning elsewhere.