Air Pollution and Solar Energy: Evidence from Wildfires

Seung Min Kim and Kenneth T. Gillingham

Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, 2025, vol. 12, issue 2, 493 - 526

Abstract: There is strong evidence on the mortality and morbidity external costs of air pollution. This study focuses on another source of air pollution externality: the loss in solar electricity generation from increased atmospheric opacity due to air pollution. We use data from residential rooftop solar panels and exploit quasi-random variation in air opacity from wildfire smoke and wind conditions to estimate that PM2.5 pollution reduced annual solar generation in California by over 450 GWh, or 4% of total potential generation. This is equivalent to an annual externality of $177 per ton of PM2.5 emitted. Our findings suggest that there is positive feedback from decarbonization policies, where reduced dependence on fossil fuels improves air quality, leading to even greater productivity of solar generation, further reducing emissions.

Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/731514 (application/pdf)
http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/731514 (text/html)
Access to the online full text or PDF requires a subscription.

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:ucp:jaerec:doi:10.1086/731514

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists from University of Chicago Press
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Journals Division ().