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Retail electricity price savings from compliance flexibility in GHG standards for stationary sources

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  • Burtraw, Dallas
  • Woerman, Matt
  • Paul, Anthony

Abstract

The EPA will issue rules regulating greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from existing steam boilers and refineries in 2012. A crucial issue affecting the scope and cost of emissions reductions will be the potential introduction of flexibility in compliance, including averaging across groups of facilities. This research investigates the role of compliance flexibility for the most important of these source categories—existing coal-fired power plants—that currently account for one-third of national emissions of carbon dioxide, the most important greenhouse gas. We find a flexible standard, calibrated to achieve the same emissions reductions as a traditional(inflexible) approach, reduces the increase in electricity price by 60 percent and overall costs by two-thirds in 2020. The flexible standard also leads to substantially more investment to improve the operating efficiency of existing facilities, whereas the traditional standard leads to substantially greater retirement of existing facilities.

Suggested Citation

  • Burtraw, Dallas & Woerman, Matt & Paul, Anthony, 2012. "Retail electricity price savings from compliance flexibility in GHG standards for stationary sources," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 67-77.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:enepol:v:42:y:2012:i:c:p:67-77
    DOI: 10.1016/j.enpol.2011.11.036
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    1. Winston Harrington & Richard D. Morgenstern & Peter Nelson, 2000. "On the accuracy of regulatory cost estimates," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 19(2), pages 297-322.
    2. Newell, Richard G & Stavins, Robert N, 2003. "Cost Heterogeneity and the Potential Savings from Market-Based Policies," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 23(1), pages 43-59, January.
    3. Dallas Burtraw & Art Fraas & Nathan Richardson, 2011. "Policy Monitor--Greenhouse Gas Regulation under the Clean Air Act: A Guide for Economists," Review of Environmental Economics and Policy, Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 5(2), pages 293-313, Summer.
    4. Burtraw, Dallas & Fraas, Arthur G. & Richardson, Nathan, 2011. "Greenhouse Gas Regulation under the Clean Air Act: A Guide for Economists," RFF Working Paper Series dp-11-08, Resources for the Future.
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Burtraw, Dallas & Woerman, Matt, 2013. "Technology Flexibility and Stringency for Greenhouse Gas Regulations," RFF Working Paper Series dp-13-24, Resources for the Future.
    2. Ibanez, Marcela & Blackman, Allen, 2015. "Environmental and Economic Impacts of Growing Certified Organic Coffee in Colombia," RFF Working Paper Series dp-15-02, Resources for the Future.
    3. Bryan K. Mignone & Thomas Alfstad & Aaron Bergman & Kenneth Dubin & Richard Duke & Paul Friley & Andrew Martinez & Matthew Mowers & Karen Palmer & Anthony Paul & Sharon Showalter & Daniel Steinberg & , 2012. "Cost-effectiveness and Economic Incidence of a Clean Energy Standard," Economics of Energy & Environmental Policy, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 3).
    4. Paul, Anthony & Palmer, Karen & Woerman, Matt, 2014. "Designing by Degrees: Flexibility and Cost-Effectiveness in Climate PolicyAbstract: Substantially reducing carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from electricity production will require a transformation of t," RFF Working Paper Series dp-14-05, Resources for the Future.
    5. Burtraw, Dallas & Fraas, Arthur G. & Richardson, Nathan, 2012. "Tradable Standards for Clean Air Act Carbon Policy," RFF Working Paper Series dp-12-05, Resources for the Future.
    6. Burtraw, Dallas & Woerman, Matt, 2013. "Economic ideas for a complex climate policy regime," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 40(S1), pages 24-31.
    7. Joshua Linn & Erin Mastrangelo & Dallas Burtraw, 2014. "Regulating Greenhouse Gases from Coal Power Plants under the Clean Air Act," Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, University of Chicago Press, vol. 1(1), pages 97-134.
    8. Bielen, David A., 2018. "Do differentiated performance standards help coal? CO2 policy in the U.S. electricity sector," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 79-100.
    9. Patrick Bigger, 2018. "Hybridity, possibility: Degrees of marketization in tradeable permit systems," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 50(3), pages 512-530, May.
    10. Xenophon, Aleksis Kazubiernis & Hill, David John, 2019. "Emissions reduction and wholesale electricity price targeting using an output-based mechanism," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 242(C), pages 1050-1063.
    11. Anthony Paul & Karen Palmer & Matthew Woerman, 2015. "Incentives, Margins, And Cost Effectiveness In Comprehensive Climate Policy For The Power Sector," Climate Change Economics (CCE), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 6(04), pages 1-27, November.
    12. Li, Mingquan & Patiño-Echeverri, Dalia, 2017. "Estimating benefits and costs of policies proposed in the 13th FYP to improve energy efficiency and reduce air emissions of China's electric power sector," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 111(C), pages 222-234.
    13. Keyes, Amelia & Lambert, Kathleen & Burtraw, Dallas & Buonocore, Jonathan & Levy, Jonathan & Driscoll, Charles, 2018. "Carbon Standards Examined: A Comparison of At-the-Source and Beyond-the-Source Power Plant Carbon Standards," RFF Working Paper Series 18-20, Resources for the Future.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Climate; Efficiency; Flexibility;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • K32 - Law and Economics - - Other Substantive Areas of Law - - - Energy, Environmental, Health, and Safety Law
    • Q54 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Climate; Natural Disasters and their Management; Global Warming
    • Q58 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Environmental Economics: Government Policy

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