Fuel-switch decisions in the electric power industry under environmental regulations

Rafay Ishfaq, Uzma Raja and Mark Clark

IISE Transactions, 2016, vol. 48, issue 3, 205-219

Abstract: The changing landscape of environmental regulations, discovery of new domestic sources of natural gas, and the economics of energy markets has resulted in a major shift in the choice of fuel for electric power generation. This research focuses on the relevant factors that impact a power plant's decision to switch fuel from coal to natural gas and the timing of such decisions. The factors studied in this article include capital costs of plant replacement, public policy, associated monetary penalties, availability and access to gas supply networks, and the option of plant retirement. These factors are evaluated in a case study of power plants in the Southeastern United States, using mathematical programming and logistic regression models. The results show that environmental regulations can be effective if the monetary penalties imposed by such regulations are set at an appropriate level, with respect to plant replacement costs. Although it is economic for large-size (power generation capacity > 600 MW) coal-fired power plants to switch fuel to natural gas, plant retirement is more suitable for smaller-sized plants. This article also presents a multi-logit decision model that can help identify the best time for a power plant to switch fuel and whether such a decision is useful in the context of plant replacement costs, fuel costs, electric power decommission limits, and environmental penalties.

Date: 2016
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/0740817X.2015.1056391 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
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:taf:uiiexx:v:48:y:2016:i:3:p:205-219

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/uiie20

DOI: 10.1080/0740817X.2015.1056391

Access Statistics for this article

IISE Transactions is currently edited by Jianjun Shi

More articles in IISE Transactions from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().