 The effect of electricity time-of-use plans: Evidence from the industrial sector in ChinaLingfang Li, Jiehong Qiu and Gang Fang China Economic Review, 2025, vol. 91, issue C Abstract: Time-of-use (TOU) pricing plans are crucial energy market mechanisms implemented worldwide. Using a staggered difference-in-differences research design and hourly electricity data from industrial customers, this study goes beyond simply assessing the effectiveness of TOU pricing. It investigates under which circumstances TOU pricing may effectively contribute to peak shaving and valley filling. Our results indicate that high-peak-price TOU pricing may induce peak-shaving effects for both large- and small-scale industrial customers but does not lead to valley filling. Conversely, low-peak-price TOU pricing increases electricity consumption among large-scale industrial customers, regardless of whether it is a peak or valley period. In terms of expenditure, the shift from a flat rate to TOU pricing is associated with a 1.7 % reduction in monthly electricity costs for large-scale industrial customers. Furthermore, high-peak-price TOU pricing significantly improves demand stability, leading to a 4.7 % reduction in the peak-to-valley load ratio. Keywords: TOU; Electricity; Staggered DID; Two-way fixed effects; Power grid (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:chieco:v:91:y:2025:i:c:s1043951x25000483 DOI: 10.1016/j.chieco.2025.102390 Access Statistics for this article China Economic Review is currently edited by B.M. Fleisher, K. X. D. Huang, M.E. Lovely, Y. Wen, X. Zhang and X. Zhu More articles in China Economic Review from Elsevier |
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