Avoided electricity subsidy payments can finance substantial appliance efficiency incentive programs: Case study of Mexico

Technical Report · Fri Mar 01 04:00:00 EST 2013

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/1171613· OSTI ID:1171613

Leventis, Greg ^[1]; Gopal, Anand ^[1]; Rue du Can, Stephane de la ^[1]; Phadke, Amol ^[1]

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1. Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)

Numerous countries use taxpayer funds to subsidize residential electricity for a variety of socioeconomic objectives. These subsidies lower the value of energy efficiency to the consumer while raising it for the government. Further, while it would be especially helpful to have stringent Minimum Energy Performance Standards (MEPS) for appliances and buildings in this environment, they are hard to strengthen without imposing a cost on ratepayers. In this secondbest world, where the presence of subsidies limits the government’s ability to strengthen standards, we find that avoided subsidies are a readily available source of financing for energy efficiency incentive programs. Here, we introduce the LBNL Energy Efficiency Revenue Analysis (LEERA) model to estimate the appliance efficiency improvements that can be achieved in Mexico by the revenue neutral financing of incentive programs from avoided subsidy payments. LEERA uses the detailed techno-economic analysis developed by LBNL for the Super-efficient Equipment and Appliance Deployment (SEAD) Initiative to calculate the incremental costs of appliance efficiency improvements. We analyze Mexico’s tariff structures and the long-run marginal cost of supply to calculate the marginal savings for the government from appliance efficiency. We find that avoided subsidy payments alone can finance incentive programs that cover the full incremental cost of refrigerators that are 27% more efficient and TVs that are 32% more efficient than baseline models. We find less substantial market transformation potential for room ACs primarily because AC energy savings occur at less subsidized tariffs.

• Research Organization: Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Science (SC)
• DOE Contract Number: AC02-05CH11231
• OSTI ID: 1171613
• Report Number(s): LBNL--6218E
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

25 ENERGY STORAGE
29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY
32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATION