The impact of a Carbon Tax on the CO2 emissions reduction of wind

Chi-Kong Chyong, Bowei Guo and David M Newbery

Cambridge Working Papers in Economics from Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge

Abstract: Energy policy aims to reduce emissions at least long-run cost while ensuring reliability. Its efficacy depends on the cost of emissions reduced. Britain introduced an additional carbon tax (the Carbon Price Support, CPS) for fuels used to generate electricity that by 2015 added £18/t CO2, dramatically reducing the coal share from 41% in 2013 to 6% in 2018. Policies have both short and long-run impacts. Both need to be estimated to measure carbon savings. The paper shows how to measure the Marginal Displacement Factor (MDF, tonnes CO2 /MWh) for wind. The short-run MDF is estimated econometrically while the long-run MDF is calculated from a unit commitment model of the GB system in 2015. We examine counter-factual fuel and carbon price scenarios. The CPS lowered the short-run SR-MDF by 7% in 2015 but raised the long-run LR-MDF (for a 25% increase in wind capacity) by 18%. We discuss reasons for the modest differences in the SR and LR MDFs. The CPS raised the 2016 wholesale price by £6.22/MWh with impacts on interconnector trade.

Keywords: Wind; marginal displacement factors; carbon pricing; fuel mix; unit commitment model; econometrics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H23 L94 Q48 Q54 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019-01-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ene, nep-env and nep-reg
Note: dmgn
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

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Related works:
Journal Article: The Impact of a Carbon Tax on the CO2 Emissions Reduction of Wind (2020)
Working Paper: The impact of a Carbon Tax on the CO2 emissions reduction of wind (2019)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cam:camdae:1904

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