Demand-Side Management Programs Under Retail Electricity Competition

Timothy Brennan

RFF Working Paper Series from Resources for the Future

Abstract: Demand-side management programs comprise subsidies from franchised electric utilities for the purchase of high-efficiency appliances, e.g., air conditioners. Competition in power generation threatens the viability of these programs. However, it should also reduce the warrant for them. Under regulation, the justification for such programs depends, somewhat paradoxically, on below marginal-cost pricing. Eliminating regulation should permit pricing flexibility to discourage excessive on-peak energy use. It should also eliminate the assurance of returns that may have encouraged overbuilding of generation capacity. Entrants and incumbent utilities should find it easier to offer "energy services," i.e., to bundle electricity with appliances, if consumers are too myopic to realize the benefits of increasing energy efficiency. Environmental degradation remains a problem, but competition can improve the performance of incentive-based regulations (e.g., permit trades), reducing the value of DSM as a supplemental, second-best alternative.

Date: 1998-10-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ene
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (11)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.rff.org/RFF/documents/RFF-DP-99-02.pdf (application/pdf)
Our link check indicates that this URL is bad, the error code is: 404 Not Found (http://www.rff.org/RFF/documents/RFF-DP-99-02.pdf [301 Moved Permanently]--> https://www.rff.org/RFF/documents/RFF-DP-99-02.pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Demand-Side Management Programs Under Retail Electricity Competition (1998)
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:rff:dpaper:dp-99-02

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in RFF Working Paper Series from Resources for the Future Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Resources for the Future ().