Efficiency and environmental impacts of electricity restructuring on coal-fired power plants

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• 作者：H. Ron Chan^a ; ^{ron.chan@manchester.ac.uk} ; Harrison Fell^b ; ^{hfell@ncsu.edu} ; Ian Lange^c ; ^{ilange@mines.edu} ; Shanjun Li^d ; ^{SL2448@cornell.edu}
• 关键词：L51 ; L94 ; L98 ; Q48
• 刊名：Journal of Environmental Economics and Management
• 出版年：2017
• 出版时间：January 2017
• 年：2017
• 卷：81
• 期：Complete
• 页码：1-18
• 全文大小：730 K
• 卷排序：81

文摘

We investigate the efficiency and environmental impacts of electricity market restructuring by examining changes in fuel efficiency, cost of coal purchases, and utilization among coal-fired power plants based on a panel data set from 1991 to 2005. Our study focuses exclusively on coal-fired power plants and uses panel data covering several years after implementation of restructuring. The estimation compares how investor-owned (IOs) plants in states with restructuring changed their behavior relative to IOs in states without. Our analysis finds that restructuring led to: (1) a 1.4 percent improvement in fuel efficiency, (2) an 8 percent decrease in unit cost of heat input, and (3) a lower capacity factor even after adjusting for cross-plant generation re-allocation due to cost reductions. The estimates imply that restructuring has led to nearly 15 percent savings in operating expenses and up to 7.5 percent emissions reduction among these plants.