Consistent input aggregation in the cost function for steam electric generation

Thesis/Dissertation · Tue Jan 01 04:00:00 EST 1985

OSTI ID:5590641

Schneider, C G

In the electric utility industry, attention has been focused primarily upon estimation of input substitution, scale economies, and technical change in the generation of electricity at steam electric facilities burning fossil fuels (coal, oil, or natural gas). Variations in the general technology associated with the choice of a primary fuel establishes subtechnologies that have been implicitly recognized through sample design and stratification. Yet, no explicit reconciliation of these subtechnologies and the aggregate technology has been offered. In addition, no explicit test has been offered to support aggregation over the subtechnologies. The theories of duality, separability, and functional structure provide the tools necessary for the design of nested tests of the existence of aggregation schemes that yield equivalent depictions of the generation technology. Such aggregation schemes are described as consistent. Drawing upon these theories, parameteric restrictions, which maintain the approximation characteristics of the translog cost function, are derived for several nest forms of separable functional structures. A dual-translog cost function of 14 cost share equations are estimated using the full information maximum likelihood technique and data are drawn for the period 1969 to 1973 from a sample of 70 investor owned utilities.

• Research Organization: Oregon Univ., Eugene (USA)
• OSTI ID: 5590641
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

20 FOSSIL-FUELED POWER PLANTS
200100 -- Fossil-Fueled Power Plants-- Power Plants & Power Generation
29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY
290200 -- Energy Planning & Policy-- Economics & Sociology
296001* -- Energy Planning & Policy-- Electric Power Generation-- (-1989)
COST ESTIMATION
DATA ANALYSIS
ELECTRIC UTILITIES
FOSSIL-FUEL POWER PLANTS
MAXIMUM-LIKELIHOOD FIT
NUMERICAL SOLUTION
POWER GENERATION
POWER PLANTS
PUBLIC UTILITIES
TECHNOLOGY ASSESSMENT
THERMAL POWER PLANTS