Utilities need to invest in the future, and the Transition needs to be paid for by their customers. The less painful that is to each customer, the more publicly acceptable it will be. Maximilian Auffhammer at the Energy Institute at Haas explains how electricity pricing usually combines a fixed monthly charge with a block rate price (the charge for each additional unit of energy). Here he reviews a new report that scrutinises how different firms … [Read more...]
Calculating the effect of $50/tonne CO2 on energy prices
Despite much debate, governments are hesitant to raise – or even impose – carbon pricing, worried about the direct impact it will have on businesses and consumers.To help understand its effect Severin Borenstein at the Energy Institute at Haas has crunched the numbers of a $50/tonne CO2 price, very expensive by today’s standards. He’s calculated the actual price increases on a gallon of petrol/gasoline, gas- and coal-fired generation, and natural … [Read more...]
Grid balancing: Electric Cars are a lot like water heaters, so relax
Electric water heaters consume as much power as electric cars, drawing on the grid in much the same way: everyone’s doing it at roughly the same time of day. The U.S. already has 60m such heaters and manages to balance the grid with no problem. So adding tens of millions of electric cars should be very manageable even without direct control of when the cars charge, says Jim Lazar at the Regulatory Assistance Project (RAP). It only takes two to … [Read more...]
Can other technologies replicate Solar PV price reductions?
Catherine Wolfram at the Haas School of Business reviews the new book “How Solar Energy Became Cheap” by Greg Nemet. It traces Solar PV’s history from Bell Labs in 1954 through to the present. The phenomenal price drops mean today’s cost/kWh is 1,000 times lower than in the 1970s. The analysis is split into four epochs when output was dominated by US, Japanese, then German and finally Chinese production. How much were improvements thanks to sheer … [Read more...]
$400bn in global fossil fuel consumption subsidies, twice that for renewables
At over $400bn in 2018, global fossil fuel consumption subsidies are more than double those for renewables. That makes sense while governments worldwide use energy subsidies to help poor consumers, and clean energy still makes up a smaller proportion of the global energy mix. But it makes the transition harder: cheaper fossil energy means more is consumed, and it’ll take longer for clean energy to compete it away. The IEA’s WEO Energy Analysts … [Read more...]
Energy Efficiency should target inefficient use, not all use
Energy efficiency should not just be a matter of reducing energy consumption. As renewables grow pricing and profits should encourage renewable consumption. After all, renewables aren’t a problem. And greater renewables consumption means less fossil fuels. Yet consumer pricing models with a low fixed price + high variable rate are designed to discourage all consumption, warns James Bushnell of the Energy Institute at Haas. He says we must … [Read more...]
India kick-starts wholesale electricity market reforms
India’s wholesale electricity market is no longer fit for purpose according to Dheer Patel of the Regulatory Assistance Project (RAP). Long term procurement contracts are forcing distribution companies (discoms) to buy expensive energy when cheaper alternatives are readily available. So the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (CERC) is launching a six-month pilot, starting 1st April, that enables “least-cost dispatch” of all centrally … [Read more...]
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