An economic evaluation of the potential for distributed energy in Australia

Lilley William E., Luke Reedman (), Liam Wagner, Alie Colin F. and Szatow Anthony R.

Energy Policy, 2012, vol. 51, issue C, 277-289

Abstract: We present here economic findings from a major study by Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) on the value of distributed energy technologies (DE; collectively demand management, energy efficiency and distributed generation) for reducing greenhouse gas emissions from Australia's energy sector (CSIRO, 2009). The study covered potential economic, environmental, technical, social, policy and regulatory impacts that could result from their wide scale adoption. Partial Equilibrium modeling of the stationary energy and transport sectors found that Australia could achieve a present value welfare gain of around $130 billion when operating under a 450ppm carbon reduction trajectory through to 2050. Modeling also suggests that reduced volatility in the spot market could decrease average prices by up to 12% in 2030 and 65% in 2050 by using local resources to better cater for an evolving supply–demand imbalance. Further modeling suggests that even a small amount of distributed generation located within a distribution network has the potential to significantly alter electricity prices by changing the merit order of dispatch in an electricity spot market. Changes to the dispatch relative to a base case can have both positive and negative effects on network losses.

Keywords: Distributed energy; Economic modeling; Electricity markets (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (13)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421512006659
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
Working Paper: An economic evaluation of the potential for distributed energy in Australia (2012)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:enepol:v:51:y:2012:i:c:p:277-289

DOI: 10.1016/j.enpol.2012.08.008

Access Statistics for this article

Energy Policy is currently edited by N. France

More articles in Energy Policy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().