The Perverse Impact of Calling for Energy Conservation

J Holladay, Michael Price and Marianne Wanamaker ()

No 2014-01, Working Papers from University of Tennessee, Department of Economics

Abstract: In periods of high energy demand, utilities frequently issue "emergency" appeals for conservation over peak hours to reduce brownout risk. We estimate the impact of such appeals using high-frequency data on actual and forecasted electricity generation, pollutant emission measures, and real-time prices. Our results suggest a perverse impact; while there is no significant reduction in grid stress over superpeak hours, such calls lead to increased off-peak generation, CO2 emissions, and price volatility. We postulate that consumer attempts at load shifting lead to this result.

Keywords: Energy Demand; Air Pollution; Conservation; Media (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D8 Q4 Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 26 pages
Date: 2014-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ene and nep-env
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Published in Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, Feb 2015, pages 1-37

Downloads: (external link)
http://web.utk.edu/~jhollad3/Perverse_Impact.pdf First version, 2014 (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: The perverse impact of calling for energy conservation (2015)
Working Paper: The Perverse Impact of Calling for Energy Conservation (2014)
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:ten:wpaper:2014-01

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from University of Tennessee, Department of Economics Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Scott Holladay ().