IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cam/camdae/0858.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Does Weather Explain the Cost and Quality? An Analysis of UK Electricity Distribution Companies

Author

Listed:
  • Yu, W.
  • Jamasb, T.
  • Pollitt, M.G.

Abstract

In recent years, a number of empirical studies and energy regulators have applied benchmarking techniques to measure the efficiency and performance of network utilities. An important issue has been the extent to which such results are influenced by contextual factors. Among these, weather factors are frequently discussed as being important. We use Factor Analysis and two-stage Data Envelopment Analysis techniques to examine the effect of a set of important weather factors (gale, hail, temperatures, rainfall and thunder) on the performance of electricity distribution networks in the UK. The results indicate that such factors often do not have a significant economic and statistical effect on the overall performance of the utilities. The weather parameters in some models are significant in terms of economic efficiency. After excluding network length from the outputs, the weather effect becomes less significant in the model. Hence, the network length is counteracting the weather effect. The results echo our previous findings of the importance of extending the basic model to include other inputs such as Totex, CML and network energy losses in regulatory benchmarking.

Suggested Citation

  • Yu, W. & Jamasb, T. & Pollitt, M.G., 2008. "Does Weather Explain the Cost and Quality? An Analysis of UK Electricity Distribution Companies," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 0858, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
  • Handle: RePEc:cam:camdae:0858
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.econ.cam.ac.uk/research-files/repec/cam/pdf/cwpe0858.pdf
    File Function: Working Paper Version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. William Yu & Tooraj Jamasb & Michael Pollitt, 2007. "Incorporating the Price of Quality in Efficiency Analysis: the Case of Electricity Distribution Regulation in the UK," Working Papers EPRG 0713, Energy Policy Research Group, Cambridge Judge Business School, University of Cambridge.
    2. P. Nillesen & M. Pollitt, 2010. "Using Regulatory Benchmarking Techniques to Set Company Performance Targets: The Case of Us Electricity," Competition and Regulation in Network Industries, Intersentia, vol. 11(1), pages 50-85, March.
    3. Yang, Hongliang & Pollitt, Michael, 2009. "Incorporating both undesirable outputs and uncontrollable variables into DEA: The performance of Chinese coal-fired power plants," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 197(3), pages 1095-1105, September.
    4. Sailor, David J. & Muñoz, J.Ricardo, 1997. "Sensitivity of electricity and natural gas consumption to climate in the U.S.A.—Methodology and results for eight states," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 22(10), pages 987-998.
    5. Giannakis, Dimitrios & Jamasb, Tooraj & Pollitt, Michael, 2005. "Benchmarking and incentive regulation of quality of service: an application to the UK electricity distribution networks," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 33(17), pages 2256-2271, November.
    6. Jamasb, Tooraj & Pollitt, Michael, 2007. "Incentive regulation of electricity distribution networks: Lessons of experience from Britain," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 35(12), pages 6163-6187, December.
    7. Pardo, Angel & Meneu, Vicente & Valor, Enric, 2002. "Temperature and seasonality influences on Spanish electricity load," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 24(1), pages 55-70, January.
    8. Jamasb, T. & Pollitt, M., 2000. "Benchmarking and regulation: international electricity experience," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 9(3), pages 107-130, September.
    9. Pekka Korhonen & Mikko Syrjänen, 2003. "Evaluation of Cost Efficiency in Finnish Electricity Distribution," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 121(1), pages 105-122, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Haney, Aoife Brophy & Pollitt, Michael G., 2009. "Efficiency analysis of energy networks: An international survey of regulators," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(12), pages 5814-5830, December.
    2. Humberto Brea-Solis & Sergio Perelman & David Saal, 2017. "Regulatory incentives to water losses reduction: the case of England and Wales," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 47(3), pages 259-276, June.

    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. Yu, William & Jamasb, Tooraj & Pollitt, Michael, 2009. "Does weather explain cost and quality performance? An analysis of UK electricity distribution companies," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(11), pages 4177-4188, November.
    2. Llorca, Manuel & Orea, Luis & Pollitt, Michael G., 2016. "Efficiency and environmental factors in the US electricity transmission industry," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 234-246.
    3. Sueyoshi, Toshiyuki & Yuan, Yan & Goto, Mika, 2017. "A literature study for DEA applied to energy and environment," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 104-124.
    4. Saastamoinen, Antti & Bjørndal, Endre & Bjørndal, Mette, 2016. "Specification of merger gains in the Norwegian electricity distribution industry," Discussion Papers 2016/7, Norwegian School of Economics, Department of Business and Management Science.
    5. Mirza, Faisal Mehmood & Mushtaq, Iqra, 2022. "Estimating the marginal cost of improving services quality in electricity distribution utilities of Pakistan," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 167(C).
    6. Anaya, Karim L. & Pollitt, Michael G., 2017. "Using stochastic frontier analysis to measure the impact of weather on the efficiency of electricity distribution businesses in developing economies," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 263(3), pages 1078-1094.
    7. Angel Arcos-Vargas & Fernando Núñez & Juan Antonio Ballesteros, 2017. "Quality, remuneration and regulatory framework: some evidence on the European electricity distribution," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 51(1), pages 98-118, February.
    8. Anna Ter-Martirosyan & John Kwoka, 2010. "Incentive regulation, service quality, and standards in U.S. electricity distribution," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 38(3), pages 258-273, December.
    9. Jamasb, Tooraj & Orea, Luis & Pollitt, Michael, 2012. "Estimating the marginal cost of quality improvements: The case of the UK electricity distribution companies," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(5), pages 1498-1506.
    10. Paul L. Joskow, 2014. "Incentive Regulation in Theory and Practice: Electricity Distribution and Transmission Networks," NBER Chapters, in: Economic Regulation and Its Reform: What Have We Learned?, pages 291-344, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Dimitri Dimitropoulos and Adonis Yatchew, 2017. "Is Productivity Growth in Electricity Distribution Negative? An Empirical Analysis Using Ontario Data," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 2).
    12. Jamasb, Tooraj & Pollitt, Michael, 2008. "Reference models and incentive regulation of electricity distribution networks: An evaluation of Sweden's Network Performance Assessment Model (NPAM)," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 36(5), pages 1788-1801, May.
    13. Haney, Aoife Brophy & Pollitt, Michael G., 2009. "Efficiency analysis of energy networks: An international survey of regulators," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(12), pages 5814-5830, December.
    14. Ajayi, Victor & Anaya, Karim & Pollitt, Michael, 2022. "Incentive regulation, productivity growth and environmental effects: the case of electricity networks in Great Britain," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 115(C).
    15. Victor Ajayi & Michael Pollitt, 2022. "Changing times - Incentive regulation, corporate reorganisations, and productivity in Great Britain’s gas networks," Working Papers 023, The Productivity Institute.
    16. Christian Growitsch & Tooraj Jamasb & Michael Pollitt, 2009. "Quality of service, efficiency and scale in network industries: an analysis of European electricity distribution," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 41(20), pages 2555-2570.
    17. Reichl, Johannes & Kollmann, Andrea & Tichler, Robert & Schneider, Friedrich, 2008. "The importance of incorporating reliability of supply criteria in a regulatory system of electricity distribution: An empirical analysis for Austria," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 36(10), pages 3862-3871, October.
    18. Ogunrinde, Olawale & Shittu, Ekundayo, 2023. "Efficiency and productivity of renewable energy technologies: Evidence from U.S. investor-owned utilities across regional markets," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
    19. Haney, Aoife Brophy & Pollitt, Michael G., 2013. "International benchmarking of electricity transmission by regulators: A contrast between theory and practice?," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 267-281.
    20. Çelen, Aydın & Yalçın, Neşe, 2012. "Performance assessment of Turkish electricity distribution utilities: An application of combined FAHP/TOPSIS/DEA methodology to incorporate quality of service," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 23(C), pages 59-71.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Data Envelopment Analysis; electricity; weather; quality of service.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • L15 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Information and Product Quality
    • L51 - Industrial Organization - - Regulation and Industrial Policy - - - Economics of Regulation
    • L94 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Transportation and Utilities - - - Electric Utilities

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:cam:camdae:0858. 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: Jake Dyer (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.econ.cam.ac.uk/ .

    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.