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Electricity demand and consumption by time-of-use: a survey. Final report

Technical Report ·
OSTI ID:5487823

This paper surveys the theoretical and econometric methodologies available to support empirical work aimed at the estimation of price elasticities of demand and/or consumption for electricity by time-of-day and seasonally. Such elasticities are the important quantities for use in assessing the impact of time-of-use (TOU) seasonal rates on customer well-being and utility revenues. The empirical evidence to date is evaluated in light of these methodologies. Experiments on TOU pricing for residential customers have been on-going for several years and, recently, detailed econometric analyses of those experiments already completed have been reported. For various reasons it is concluded that, while the results of some of these efforts are suggestive, at this time there is still a lack of sufficient quantitative evidence to guide policy makers even at a local level. As for other customer classes, the few instances of mandatory TOU/seasonal rates for very large power customers (in California and Wisconsin) are discussed.

Research Organization:
University of Southern California, Los Angeles (USA); Toronto Univ., Ontario (Canada)
OSTI ID:
5487823
Report Number(s):
EPRI-AF-1294
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English