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Deconstructing the Rosenfeld curve: Making sense of California's low electricity intensity

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  • Sudarshan, Anant

Abstract

Regulatory regimes that have increased household energy efficiency are of widespread interest to policymakers today. A prominent example is the state of California where electricity intensities in the residential sector have stayed near constant since the 1970s in sharp contrast to nationwide trends in the United States. A structural model of residential energy consumption is used to show that the use of energy intensities alone to evaluate the success of California efficiency programs is misleading and glosses over important policy independent factors. We quantify important effects of price, climate conditions and demographic characteristics on energy consumption in California. We also provide evidence of split incentive considerations in residential energy consumption patterns. We conclude that while state policy may have had some effect on efficiency, caution needs to be exercised in using the California example to inform expectations from similar measures in other regions.

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  • Sudarshan, Anant, 2013. "Deconstructing the Rosenfeld curve: Making sense of California's low electricity intensity," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 197-207.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:eneeco:v:39:y:2013:i:c:p:197-207
    DOI: 10.1016/j.eneco.2013.05.002
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    Cited by:

    1. He, Yongxiu & Guang, Fengtao & Wang, Meiyan, 2018. "The efficiency of electricity-use of China and its influencing factors," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 163(C), pages 258-269.
    2. Filippini, Massimo & Hunt, Lester C., 2015. "Measurement of energy efficiency based on economic foundations," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(S1), pages 5-16.
    3. Levinson, Arik, 2014. "California energy efficiency: Lessons for the rest of the world, or not?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 107(PA), pages 269-289.
    4. Emily Grubert, 2023. "Yellow, red, and brown energy: leveraging water footprinting concepts for decarbonizing energy systems," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 25(7), pages 7239-7260, July.
    5. Massimo Filippini & Lester C. Hunt, 2013. "'Underlying Energy Efficiency' in the US," CER-ETH Economics working paper series 13/181, CER-ETH - Center of Economic Research (CER-ETH) at ETH Zurich.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Household energy; Energy efficiency; Bayesian hierarchical modeling;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • Q48 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Energy - - - Government Policy
    • D12 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis
    • C11 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods and Methodology: General - - - Bayesian Analysis: General

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