公共产品供给主体及边界确定的交易费用经济学分析——兼论我国公共产品供给过程中交易费用的计量

将新制度经济学中交易费用理论引入公共产品供给分析,给出了供给公共产品的主体确定的理论模型,并在威廉姆森范式扩展的基础上得出了各个主体的边界,认为最优公共产品供给方式的选择和主体边界的确定,取决于公共产品供给过程中发生的交易费用.测算了中国公私部门供给公共产品过程中存在的交易费用,发现就我国公共产品的供给而言,在一定的条件下将公共产品供给由政府部门交给私人部门与第三部门可以节约交易费用,提高公共产品供给的效率.     

ELECTRICITY IN THE NORTH OF SCOTLAND

T he aim of the following paper is to assess the success of the policies followed by the North of Scotland Hydro-Electric Board in supplying the North of Scotland with electricity. In particular we raise the question of the cost of electricity, and of how far the policies followed are justified as compared with alternatives which have been available.     

The Effects of Electricity Costs on Firm Re-location Decisions: Insights for the Pollution Havens Hypothesis?

Electricity costs are partly driven by environmental policy choices. In this paper, the effects of variations in electricity costs—as measured by end-user electricity prices–on firm relocation decisions are investigated. Using a discrete choice model and a data base that has not previously been exploited to study this problem, we investigate the effects of variations in electricity costs on the intensive and extensive re-location decisions of European firms. We find that electricity costs play a significant role in determining relocation destinations. This effect is asymmetric between firms moving into and out of a country, and between high and low energy intensity sectors. The findings of the paper have implications for the Pollution Havens Hypothesis, since they show the extent to which the effects of climate policy on domestic electricity costs can be expected to impact on firm relocation decisions both into and out of a country.     

基于AHP的供电企业服务策略效果评价

为了在电力市场条件下,能够及时调整掌握供电企业服务策略,满足客户需要,必须对供电企业服务策略效果进行有效的评价,通过建立符合供电企业特征的服务策略效果评价指标体系,利用层次分析法和线性加权法相结合的数学方法,对供电企业服务策略的实施效果进行评价。最后,以某供电公司作为实证对象,实证分析结果表明该方法能够综合考虑影响供电企业服务效果的因素,可以得到科学的定量化的评价结果。     

The Costs of Power Interruptions in Germany: A Regional and Sectoral Analysis

A high standard of security of electricity supply comes at serious electricity system costs. However, these system costs have to be balanced with the economic costs induced by an insecure supply of electricity. Following a macroeconomic approach, we analyze the economic costs imposed by potential power interruptions in Germany. Using an extensive dataset on industries and households, we estimate both Values of Lost Load and the associated hourly costs of power interruptions for different German regions and sectors. We find that interruption costs vary significantly over time, between sectors and regions. Peaking at midday on a Monday in December at 750 Mio € per hour, the average total national outage costs amount to approximately 430 Mio € per hour. A missing gigawatt hour creates average outage costs of about 7.6 Mio €.     

交易成本是影响纵向整合选择的重要因素吗?——来自中国煤电上市公司的实证检验

笔者以中国52个煤电上市公司的纵向整合状况为例,运用面板数据模型分析了煤电企业选择纵向整合方式时考虑的因素。研究结果表明:交易成本对煤电企业采用纵向整合的影响较大,生产成本和策略效应的影响较小,这证实了交易成本和组织成本影响到了纵向整合的选择。纵向整合是中国煤电协调的有效但非唯一选择。     

SOCIAL COSTS OF ELECTRICITY GENERATION: WIND AND PHOTOVOLTAIC VERSUS FOSSIL AND NUCLEAR

This paper presents the results of research on the total costs to society of different technologies for electric power production in the Federal Republic of Germany. The analysis views electricity costs from a macroeconomic perspective and includes the internal or private costs as well as the social costs. The focus is on fossil and nuclear fuels as conventional energy sources on the one side and on wind and photovoltaic electricity as examples of renewable energy sources on the other.     

The effects of wind generation capacity on electricity prices and generation costs: a Monte Carlo analysis

We use Monte Carlo analysis to examine the potential of increased renewable generation to provide a hedge against variability in energy prices and costs. Fuel costs, electricity demand and wind generation are allowed to vary and a unit commitment and economic dispatch algorithm is employed to produce cost-minimizing generation schedules under different levels of installed wind capacity. Increased wind capacity reduces the mean and the variance of production costs but only the variance of electricity prices. Wind generators see their market revenues increase while consumer payments and fossil generator profits do not considerably vary as wind capacity increases. Risk aversion is captured by considering the conditional value-at-risk for both consumers and producers. The optimal level of wind generation increases as risk aversion increases due to the potential of wind to act as a hedge against very high electricity prices in high fuel price scenarios.     

HAVE RENEWABLE PORTFOLIO STANDARDS RAISED ELECTRICITY RATES? EVIDENCE FROM U.S. ELECTRIC UTILITIES

Using a panel dataset of U.S. electric utilities, we investigate the effect of a Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPS) on the rates of electric utilities affected by the mandate. Our findings are twofold. First, we find that, on average, electric utilities affected by an RPS mandate charged a higher electricity rate. This would suggest that an RPS mandate is a costly constraint on the utilities that have to comply with the requirement. The second finding of our analysis is that marginal increases in a utility's RPS requirement do not necessarily translate into higher electricity rates. This would imply that the costs imposed on utilities affected by the RPS mandate tend to be fixed costs rather than variable costs. We also find that controlling for time‐varying unobserved factors at the state level is key to identifying the RPS effect on electricity retail rates. (JEL Q42, Q48, L98)     

Economies of Scale and Utilization: An Analysis of the Multi-Plant Generation Costs of the Electricity Commission of New South Wales, 1970/71–1984/85*

We examine the average costs of electricity generated in NSW at the site level employing a new simultaneous-equations model approach Further, we argue that costs depend principally on unit size and capacity utilization We reinterpret capacity utilization as a compositional variable which is a continuous proxy for the (inverse of) the intensity of demand for electricity, thus partially addressing the multi-product nature of electricity. Low capacity utilization corresponds to intense demands and hence peaking output We find that costs per kWh, as conventionally measured, are highly sensitive to the degree of capacity utilization but less so to unit size (scale). The results emphasize the need for tine-related pricing     

降低电网企业垄断程度的改革策略分析

电网一般认为是自然垄断经营的.降低电网垄断经营的主要手段之一是输配分开.输配分开是我国电力体制改革存在争议的热点问题,具有较高的改革成本和风险.分析了自然垄断行业的模拟竞争,提出模拟竞争是在自然垄断行业引入竞争的主要方式;通过总结分析国外改革情况,提出输配分开并不是电力改革的必然选择;全面分析了输配分开的改革成本和改革风险,如输配电界限的动态变化、降低电网经营的规模效益等,指出了输配分开的改革成本和改革风险;最后分析了输配分开的期望效益.     

Impact of regulation on demand side conservation programs

This paper reviews critically the economics of utility demand-side conservation programs under different regulatory regimes introducing a service-oriented framework in order to derive simultaneously the demand for electricity and for efficiency. This framework establishes a relation between engineering efficiency improvements, the rebound effect (i.e., more efficient appliances tend to increase the service demand), and actual conservation. Price-cap regulation, which is consistent with least cost planning (LCP), leads to the necessary condition for (profitable) DSM that the price cap does not cover the marginal costs of supplying electricity. The difference between the marginal costs and the price cap determines the upper bound on the costs of a negawatt. This necessary condition for LCP cannot be met within the traditional model of rate-of-return regulation so that other incentives (shared saving) induce the utility to undertake DSM. A profit-maximizing, regulated utility subverts the DSM expenditures to inflate the rate base yet minimizing the impact on revenues. Therefore, a rate-of-return regulated utility might favor inefficient conservation programs, which helps to explain that the costs of actual conservation exceed the a priori expectations by far. Finally, DSM as a permanent option will increase free riding substantially, due to strategic consumer reactions.I acknowledge discussions with Reinhard Haas and suggestions from the editor of the journal, Professor Michael A. Crew. I am particularly grateful for the extensive, constructive and, in the end, very helpful comments from an anonymous referee.     

FOUR REVOLUTIONS IN ELECTRIC EFFICIENCY

Demand prospects for electricity are being altered profoundly by four synergistic types of revolutionary change: new technologies for improved end-use efficiency, new ways to finance and deliver those technologies to customers, cultural change within utilities, and regulatory reforms to reward efficient behavior. Dramatic energy savings achieved so far have been largely in direct fuels and not in electricity, mainly due to price distortions and unique market failures. Resulting inefficient use of electricity is misallocating some $60 billion a year to unnecessary expansions of U.S. electric supply. Yet the best technologies now on the market could save about 92 percent of U.S. lighting energy, about half of motor energy, and much of the electricity used for other purposes. Complete retrofit could deliver equal or better services with only a fourth of the electricity now used. The levelized cost of that quadrupled end-use efficiency averages about 0.6 cents/kWh– well below short-run marginal cost. Analogous oil-saving potential from the best demonstrated technologies is about 80 percent of present oil consumption at an average cost below $3/bbl, partly because two of the 9–10 prototype cars already tested at 67–138 miles per gallon are said to cost nothing extra to make. Many utilities already save large amounts of electricity very quickly and cheaply by financing customers' efficiency improvements through loans, gifts, rebates, or leases. Even more promising is an emerging “negawatt market” making saved electricity a fungible commodity subject to competitive bidding, arbitrage, derivative instruments, secondary markets, etc. Utilities can make more money selling less electricity and more efficiency. They can earn a spread on the difference in discount rates between themselves and their customers. They can save operating and capital costs while avoiding the associated risks and, under emerging regulatory reforms, can even keep as extra profit part of what they save. They also can generate tradeable emissions rights under the new Clean Air Act. Some utilities now properly ignore sunk costs and seek to minimize marginal variable costs. These utilities, driven by economic– not accounting–principles, find this approach both profitable and operationally advantageous.     

The Marginal Cost of Base-Load Power: An Application to Alcoa's Portland Smelter

The aim of this paper is to develop and exposit the methodology underlying the computation of the long-run marginal costs of 'base-load' electricity supply by a publicly owned utility. The particular application is to the costing of power to be supplied by the State Electricity Commission of Victoria (SECV) to Alcoa's aluminum smelter at Portland in Victoria. The results suggest a sizeable subsidy element in the tariff which is sensitive to the selection of the real discount rate appropriate for the public provision of electricity.     

Economic Issues Facing Electricity Supply Authorities

The slowing in the growth of electricity consumption in the early 1980s was accompanied by a significant increase in real unit costs in all Australian states. This article examines the economic issues facing government-owned electricity supply authorities under four headings: policy objectives including the question of whether the authorities should act as agencies to redistribute incomes; the estimation of future demand, especially the need to relate future demand estimates to likely changes in costs; supply aspects, including internal efficiency, cost of capital and size and reliability of generating plant; and pricing policies, particularly the need for time-of-use tariffs to improve capacity factors.     

The cost-reduction potential of electric-power pools

This research uses a non-parametric estimation procedure developed by Johansen (1972) to provide a comparison of the costs of generating electricity by a group of utilities operating either independently or as a fully integrated power pool. This paper shows that the pool may reduce costs significantly, if firms are willing to cede control to the pool.     

INCENTIVE REGULATION AND THE ROLE OF CONVEXITY IN BENCHMARKING ELECTRICITY DISTRIBUTION: ECONOMISTS VERSUS ENGINEERS

ABSTRACT ** :  This note illustrates the potential impact of the specification of a convex production technology on establishing minimal costs compared to the use of a non-convex technology when benchmarking electricity distributors. This methodological reflection is mainly motivated by recent engineering literature providing evidence for non-convexities in electricity distribution. An empirical illustration using non-parametric specifications of technology illustrates this main point using a sample of Spanish electricity distribution firms earlier analysed in Grifell-Tatjé and Lovell (2003) .     

Rethinking real-time electricity pricing

Most US consumers are charged a near-constant retail price for electricity, despite substantial hourly variation in the wholesale market price. This paper evaluates the first program to expose residential consumers to hourly real-time pricing (RTP). I find that enrolled households are statistically significantly price elastic and that consumers responded by conserving energy during peak hours, but remarkably did not increase average consumption during off-peak times. The program increased consumer surplus by $10 per household per year. While this is only one to two percent of electricity costs, it illustrates a potential additional benefit from investment in retail Smart Grid applications, including the advanced electricity meters required to observe a household’s hourly consumption.     

Cost savings and deregulation: an analysis of fuel cost savings in deregulated electricity markets

Unregulated utilities face competitive pressures that lead to cost-minimizing activities, but regulated monopolies in the US electricity generation sector face pressures only from regulators who must balance a desire for lower prices against the need for the utility to generate a sufficient return to encourage investment. This paper analyses the cost-minimizing behaviours of regulated utilities by comparing their average input coal costs with those of deregulated utilities purchasing coal from the same mine during the same month of the same year. Results indicate that coal-fired electric plants operating in deregulated electricity markets negotiate prices that are 6.1 ¢/MMBtu (3.5%) less than their regulated counterparts. In percentage terms, this is a fairly small discount for deregulated plants, but it happens to be on par with the restructuring gains that others have estimated for labour and nonfuel costs.     

Switching the lights off: The impact of energy tariff increases on households in the Kyrgyz Republic

This paper describes an analysis of the impact that higher energy tariffs would have on households in the Kyrgyz Republic using micro-data from the 2009 Kyrgyz Integrated Household Survey. This analysis was conducted to determine which households would be most affected by higher energy tariffs and to what extent mitigation measures, such as lifeline tariffs or direct cash transfers, might lessen the impact for poor and vulnerable households. The analysis focused on first-order effects and used benefit incidence analysis and static micro-simulation to estimate the expected costs and benefits of higher energy prices and the corresponding mitigation measures. The results suggest that both the type of energy and the level of connectedness matter. Increasing tariffs for thermal power used for central heating and hot water mainly affects richer households in urban areas. Reducing implicit electricity subsidies affects the entire population due to nearly complete country coverage with electricity connections. Both lifeline tariffs and direct cash transfers could mitigate the effect of higher electricity tariffs at lower costs than universal subsidies.