Researchers and professional evaluators are increasingly turning to randomized field experiments to evaluate energy efficiency programs and policies. This article provides a brief overview of several experimental methods and discusses their application to energy efficiency programs. We highlight experimental designs, such as randomized encouragement and recruit-and-deny, that are particularly well suited for situations where participation…
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Financing the Last Mile of Electricity-for-All Programs: Experiences from China
Financing electricity for all programs has been a main barrier to achieve universal energy access. In this paper, we investigate the financing mechanisms of China’s electricity for all programs with a focus on the last mile problem, and we find that central investment, cost sharing, and public-private partnerships are essential for China’s success in such…
Clean Cooking: Why is Adoption Slow Despite Large Health and Environmental Benefits?
More than one-third of the world’s population, mainly the low-income group, still rely on traditional biomass fuels for household cooking. The indoor air pollution from household cooking is one of the main drivers of child mortality in developing countries. It also causes deforestation and emissions of black carbon. A large number of studies show that…
Solar Microgrids and Remote Energy Access: How Weak Incentives Can Undermine Smart Technology
This paper documents the challenges faced by one company, Gram Power, installing and operating solar microgrids in rural India. We begin by summarizing the existing literature on best practices for microgrid deployment. Although Gram Power followed nearly all of these recommendations, the company nevertheless faced significant challenges. First, demand for solar microgrids was very limited,…
Letter to the Editor on Abada, et al. (EEEP 8(1))
How Do Low Gas Prices Affect Costs and Benefits of US New Vehicle Fuel Economy Standards?
In their initial benefit-cost analysis of the 2012-2016 passenger vehicle fuel economy standards, the U.S. regulatory agencies estimated that the benefits of the standards would be three times greater than the costs. However, their analysis was based on the high gasoline prices forecasted at the time; after their analysis, expected gasoline prices fell by 25…
The Impact of Renewable Energy Forecasts on Intraday Electricity Prices
In this paper we study the impact of errors in wind and solar power forecasts on intraday electricity prices. We develop a novel econometric model which is based on day-ahead wholesale auction curves data and errors in wind and solar power forecasts. The model shifts day-ahead supply curves to calculate intraday prices. We apply our…
Marginal Emissions Pathways: Drivers and Implications
Governments frequently use policies that target the expansion of a clean technology to achieve greenhouse gas emissions mitigation goals, such as those submitted by countries under the Paris Agreement. As a result of direct and indirect market adjustments induced by a particular policy, marginal emissions from expanding a clean technology may vary in the amount…
Fossil Fuel Subsidies, the Green Paradox and the Fiscal Paradox
Fossil fuel subsidies amounted to about 0.4% of global GDP in 2015, and there is an active call worldwide for eliminating them. The main argument in favor of removing subsidies is that it will lead to a reduction in global carbon emissions and a decrease in fiscal deficits. This paper shows that there are also…
Winners and Losers of EU Emissions Trading: Insights from the EUTL Transfer Dataset
This paper analyses distributional effects between participants of the EU Emissions Trading System (EU ETS) during its first trading period. To this end, a selection model is formulated and applied to a dataset based on account information and transfer data from the EU Transaction Log (EUTL). Four different ways of adding carbon prices to the…