IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jeners/v14y2021i12p3363-d570857.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Price of Wind: An Empirical Analysis of the Relationship between Wind Energy and Electricity Price across the Residential, Commercial, and Industrial Sectors

Author

Listed:
  • John Dorrell

    (Economics Department, Pusan National University, Jangjeon-dong, Geumjeong-gu, Busan 43241, Korea)

  • Keunjae Lee

    (Economics Department, Pusan National University, Jangjeon-dong, Geumjeong-gu, Busan 43241, Korea)

Abstract

This paper quantifies the long-term impact of wind energy development on electricity prices across the residential, commercial, and industrial sectors in the United States. Our data set is made up of state level panel data from 2000 through 2018. This time period covers the vast majority of total wind energy capacity installed in the history of the USA. Our econometric model accounts for the primary factors that influence electricity prices, incorporating both fixed effects and general method of moments in order to more precisely isolate the effect of wind energy. The empirical results conclude that wind energy is positively and significantly related to electricity prices across all sectors, as indicated by the higher average electricity prices in states with higher percentages of wind energy. The price increase is largest in the industrial sector, followed by commercial, then residential. Wind turbine technology has become significantly more efficient, but the technical gains have been offset by the increased indirect costs of incorporating wind energy into the grid. Transmission and balancing costs have increased the final price to consumers. Our results highlight the need to view wind energy development from a more holistic perspective that accounts for structural and systemic costs. This will ensure the continued growth of wind energy. These results provide relevant insight to help wind energy developers, policy makers, and utility companies build a more sustainable energy future.

Suggested Citation

  • John Dorrell & Keunjae Lee, 2021. "The Price of Wind: An Empirical Analysis of the Relationship between Wind Energy and Electricity Price across the Residential, Commercial, and Industrial Sectors," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(12), pages 1-21, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jeners:v:14:y:2021:i:12:p:3363-:d:570857
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/14/12/3363/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/14/12/3363/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bailera, Manuel & Lisbona, Pilar & Romeo, Luis M. & Espatolero, Sergio, 2017. "Power to Gas projects review: Lab, pilot and demo plants for storing renewable energy and CO2," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 292-312.
    2. Christopher F Baum & Mark E. Schaffer & Steven Stillman, 2003. "Instrumental variables and GMM: Estimation and testing," Stata Journal, StataCorp LP, vol. 3(1), pages 1-31, March.
    3. Timilsina, Govinda R. & Cornelis van Kooten, G. & Narbel, Patrick A., 2013. "Global wind power development: Economics and policies," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 642-652.
    4. Klinge Jacobsen, Henrik & Zvingilaite, Erika, 2010. "Reducing the market impact of large shares of intermittent energy in Denmark," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(7), pages 3403-3413, July.
    5. Brancucci Martinez-Anido, Carlo & Brinkman, Greg & Hodge, Bri-Mathias, 2016. "The impact of wind power on electricity prices," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 94(C), pages 474-487.
    6. Fetz, Aurelio & Filippini, Massimo, 2010. "Economies of vertical integration in the Swiss electricity sector," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(6), pages 1325-1330, November.
    7. Richard Blundell & Stephen Bond, 2000. "GMM Estimation with persistent panel data: an application to production functions," Econometric Reviews, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 19(3), pages 321-340.
    8. Ketterer, Janina C., 2014. "The impact of wind power generation on the electricity price in Germany," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 270-280.
    9. Carley, Sanya, 2009. "State renewable energy electricity policies: An empirical evaluation of effectiveness," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(8), pages 3071-3081, August.
    10. Krekel, Christian & Zerrahn, Alexander, 2017. "Does the presence of wind turbines have negative externalities for people in their surroundings? Evidence from well-being data," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 221-238.
    11. Brown, Jason P. & Pender, John & Wiser, Ryan & Lantz, Eric & Hoen, Ben, 2012. "Ex post analysis of economic impacts from wind power development in U.S. counties," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(6), pages 1743-1754.
    12. Horrace, William C. & Oaxaca, Ronald L., 2006. "Results on the bias and inconsistency of ordinary least squares for the linear probability model," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 90(3), pages 321-327, March.
    13. Shrimali, Gireesh & Kniefel, Joshua, 2011. "Are government policies effective in promoting deployment of renewable electricity resources?," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(9), pages 4726-4741, September.
    14. David Roodman, 2009. "How to do xtabond2: An introduction to difference and system GMM in Stata," Stata Journal, StataCorp LP, vol. 9(1), pages 86-136, March.
    15. Mehrhoff, Jens, 2009. "A solution to the problem of too many instruments in dynamic panel data GMM," Discussion Paper Series 1: Economic Studies 2009,31, Deutsche Bundesbank.
    16. Moreno, Blanca & López, Ana J. & García-Álvarez, María Teresa, 2012. "The electricity prices in the European Union. The role of renewable energies and regulatory electric market reforms," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 48(1), pages 307-313.
    17. Nickell, Stephen & Nicolitsas, Daphne, 1999. "How does financial pressure affect firms?," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 43(8), pages 1435-1456, August.
    18. Trujillo-Baute, Elisa & del Río, Pablo & Mir-Artigues, Pere, 2018. "Analysing the impact of renewable energy regulation on retail electricity prices," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 114(C), pages 153-164.
    19. Matz Dahlberg & Eva Johansson, 2000. "An examination of the dynamic behaviour of local governments using GMM bootstrapping methods," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 15(4), pages 401-416.
    20. Mwasilu, Francis & Justo, Jackson John & Kim, Eun-Kyung & Do, Ton Duc & Jung, Jin-Woo, 2014. "Electric vehicles and smart grid interaction: A review on vehicle to grid and renewable energy sources integration," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 501-516.
    21. Twomey, Paul & Neuhoff, Karsten, 2010. "Wind power and market power in competitive markets," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(7), pages 3198-3210, July.
    22. Arellano, Manuel & Bover, Olympia, 1995. "Another look at the instrumental variable estimation of error-components models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 68(1), pages 29-51, July.
    23. Mehrhoff, Jens, 2009. "A solution to the problem of too many instruments in dynamic panel data GMM," IBES Diskussionsbeiträge 171, University of Duisburg-Essen, Institute of Business and Economic Studie (IBES).
    24. Mulder, Machiel & Scholtens, Bert, 2013. "The impact of renewable energy on electricity prices in the Netherlands," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 94-100.
    25. He, Y.X. & Zhang, S.L. & Yang, L.Y. & Wang, Y.J. & Wang, J., 2010. "Economic analysis of coal price-electricity price adjustment in China based on the CGE model," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(11), pages 6629-6637, November.
    26. repec:zbw:rwirep:0542 is not listed on IDEAS
    27. Frondel, Manuel & Ritter, Nolan & Schmidt, Christoph M. & Vance, Colin, 2010. "Economic impacts from the promotion of renewable energy technologies: The German experience," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(8), pages 4048-4056, August.
    28. Csereklyei, Zsuzsanna & Qu, Songze & Ancev, Tihomir, 2019. "The effect of wind and solar power generation on wholesale electricity prices in Australia," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 131(C), pages 358-369.
    29. Blundell, Richard & Bond, Stephen, 1998. "Initial conditions and moment restrictions in dynamic panel data models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 87(1), pages 115-143, August.
    30. Steggals, Will & Gross, Robert & Heptonstall, Philip, 2011. "Winds of change: How high wind penetrations will affect investment incentives in the GB electricity sector," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(3), pages 1389-1396, March.
    31. Schumacher, Kim & Yang, Zhuoxiang, 2018. "The determinants of wind energy growth in the United States: Drivers and barriers to state-level development," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 97(C), pages 1-13.
    32. Manuel Frondel & Stephan Sommer & Colin Vance, 2015. "The burden of Germanyùs energy transition: An empirical analysis of distributional effects," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 45(c), pages 89-99.
    33. Götz, Manuel & Lefebvre, Jonathan & Mörs, Friedemann & McDaniel Koch, Amy & Graf, Frank & Bajohr, Siegfried & Reimert, Rainer & Kolb, Thomas, 2016. "Renewable Power-to-Gas: A technological and economic review," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 85(C), pages 1371-1390.
    34. Weidlich, Anke & Veit, Daniel, 2008. "A critical survey of agent-based wholesale electricity market models," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(4), pages 1728-1759, July.
    35. Laugs, Gideon A.H. & Benders, René M.J. & Moll, Henri C., 2020. "Balancing responsibilities: Effects of growth of variable renewable energy, storage, and undue grid interaction," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 139(C).
    36. Woo, C.K. & Zarnikau, J. & Moore, J. & Horowitz, I., 2011. "Wind generation and zonal-market price divergence: Evidence from Texas," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(7), pages 3928-3938, July.
    37. Crawford, R.H., 2009. "Life cycle energy and greenhouse emissions analysis of wind turbines and the effect of size on energy yield," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 13(9), pages 2653-2660, December.
    38. Bird, Lori & Bolinger, Mark & Gagliano, Troy & Wiser, Ryan & Brown, Matthew & Parsons, Brian, 2005. "Policies and market factors driving wind power development in the United States," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 33(11), pages 1397-1407, July.
    39. Zerrahn, Alexander, 2017. "Wind Power and Externalities," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 141(C), pages 245-260.
    40. Salima Bouayad-Agha & Lionel Védrine, 2010. "Estimation Strategies for a Spatial Dynamic Panel using GMM. A New Approach to the Convergence Issue of European Regions," Spatial Economic Analysis, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 5(2), pages 205-227.
    41. Linh Phuong Catherine Do & Štefan Lyócsa & Peter Molnár, 2019. "Impact of wind and solar production on electricity prices: Quantile regression approach," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 70(10), pages 1752-1768, October.
    42. Quint, Dov & Dahlke, Steve, 2019. "The impact of wind generation on wholesale electricity market prices in the midcontinent independent system operator energy market: An empirical investigation," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 169(C), pages 456-466.
    43. Biresselioglu, Mehmet Efe & Kilinc, Dilara & Onater-Isberk, Esra & Yelkenci, Tezer, 2016. "Estimating the political, economic and environmental factors’ impact on the installed wind capacity development: A system GMM approach," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 96(PA), pages 636-644.
    44. Geoffrey Heal, 2009. "The Economics of Renewable Energy," NBER Working Papers 15081, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. John Dorrell & Keunjae Lee, 2020. "The Cost of Wind: Negative Economic Effects of Global Wind Energy Development," Energies, MDPI, vol. 13(14), pages 1-25, July.
    2. Varvara Isyuk, 2014. "Resuming bank lending in the aftermath of the Capital Purchase Program," Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) halshs-01093414, HAL.
    3. Varvara Isyuk, 2014. "Resuming bank lending in the aftermath of the Capital Purchase Program," Documents de travail du Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne 14062, Université Panthéon-Sorbonne (Paris 1), Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne.
    4. Sigmund, Michael & Ferstl, Robert, 2021. "Panel vector autoregression in R with the package panelvar," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 693-720.
    5. Varvara Isyuk, 2014. "Resuming bank lending in the aftermath of the Capital Purchase Program," Post-Print halshs-01093414, HAL.
    6. Berk, Istemi & Kasman, Adnan & Kılınç, Dilara, 2020. "Towards a common renewable future: The System-GMM approach to assess the convergence in renewable energy consumption of EU countries," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(C).
    7. Joseph Nyangon & John Byrne, 2023. "Estimating the impacts of natural gas power generation growth on solar electricity development: PJM's evolving resource mix and ramping capability," Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Energy and Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 12(1), January.
    8. Emna Trabelsi, 2022. "Macroprudential Transparency and Price Stability in Emerging and Developing Countries," Journal of Central Banking Theory and Practice, Central bank of Montenegro, vol. 11(1), pages 105-129.
    9. Joseph L. Dieleman & Michael Hanlon, 2014. "Measuring The Displacement And Replacement Of Government Health Expenditure," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 23(2), pages 129-140, February.
    10. Antonio Ruiz Porras, 2016. "La investigación econométrica mediante paneles de datos:historia, modelos y usos en México," Archivos Revista Economía y Política., Facultad de Ciencias Económicas y Administrativas, Universidad de Cuenca., vol. 24, pages 11-32, Julio.
    11. Lee, Dongwon & Min, Sujin, 2021. "Defective democracy and the political budget cycle," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(4), pages 947-961.
    12. Adom, Philip Kofi & Insaidoo, Michael & Minlah, Michael Kaku & Abdallah, Abdul-Mumuni, 2017. "Does renewable energy concentration increase the variance/uncertainty in electricity prices in Africa?," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 107(C), pages 81-100.
    13. Osvaldo Lagares, 2016. "Capital, Economic Growth and Relative Income Differences in Latin America," Discussion Papers 16/03, Department of Economics, University of York.
    14. M. E. Bontempi & I. Mammi, 2014. "pca2: implementing a strategy to reduce the instrument count in panel GMM," Working Papers wp960, Dipartimento Scienze Economiche, Universita' di Bologna.
    15. Saoussen Aguir Bargaoui, 2022. "The Impact of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energies on Environmental Quality in OECD Countries," Journal of the Knowledge Economy, Springer;Portland International Center for Management of Engineering and Technology (PICMET), vol. 13(4), pages 3424-3444, December.
    16. Sungkwol Park & Xiaoyong Zheng & Roderick M. Rejesus & Barry K. Goodwin, 2022. "Somebody's watching me! Impacts of the spot check list program in U.S. crop insurance," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 104(3), pages 921-946, May.
    17. Vogel, Johanna, 2013. "Regional Convergence in Europe: A Dynamic Heterogeneous Panel Approach," MPRA Paper 51794, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    18. Canarella, Giorgio & Miller, Stephen M., 2018. "The determinants of growth in the U.S. information and communication technology (ICT) industry: A firm-level analysis," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 259-271.
    19. Ieva Skarda, 2016. "The Political Economy of Foreign Aid Effectiveness," Discussion Papers 16/12, Department of Economics, University of York.
    20. Emna Trabelsi, 2019. "Do independence and transparency matter for bank development? A new lookup on emerging and developing countries," Post-Print hal-02162780, HAL.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jeners:v:14:y:2021:i:12:p:3363-:d:570857. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.