IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/juipol/v29y2014icp17-24.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Lost and unaccounted-for gas: Challenges for public utility regulators

Author

Listed:
  • Costello, Kenneth W.

Abstract

A central tenet of public utility regulation is to have utilities perform at high service levels. One area of performance for gas utilities is “lost and unaccounted-for” (LAUF) gas. Customers of gas utilities effectively pay for more natural gas than they actually consume. Reasons for this discrepancy vary across utilities. Detection and measurement hinder the definitive statistical analysis of LAUF gas. This article provides a background on the definition and causes of LAUF gas and challenges it poses for utilities and regulators. The article also highlights a qualitative survey of 41 U. S. state utility commissions regarding their policies and practices relating to LAUF gas. The article also examines the regulatory policies and tools related to LAUF gas. Evaluating levels of LAUF gas is a regulatory responsibility because of implications for prudence and cost recovery. In establishing performance benchmarks, however, commissions face the daunting task of separating the effects of external conditions, accounting and measurement error, and utility management on the level of LAUF.

Suggested Citation

  • Costello, Kenneth W., 2014. "Lost and unaccounted-for gas: Challenges for public utility regulators," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 29(C), pages 17-24.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:juipol:v:29:y:2014:i:c:p:17-24
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jup.2014.04.003
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0957178714000253
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jup.2014.04.003?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Douglas N. Jones & Patrick C. Mann, 2001. "The Fairness Criterion in Public Utility Regulation: Does Fairness Still Matter?," Journal of Economic Issues, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 35(1), pages 153-172, March.
    2. Joskow, Paul L. & Rose, Nancy L., 1989. "The effects of economic regulation," Handbook of Industrial Organization, in: R. Schmalensee & R. Willig (ed.), Handbook of Industrial Organization, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 25, pages 1449-1506, Elsevier.
    3. Sherman,Roger, 1989. "The Regulation of Monopoly," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521368629, October.
    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. Scott, Ryan P. & Scott, Tyler A. & Greer, Robert A., 2019. "The environmental and safety performance of gas utilities in the United States," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 133(C).
    2. Jacek Jaworski & Paweł Kułaga & Tomasz Blacharski, 2020. "Study of the Effect of Addition of Hydrogen to Natural Gas on Diaphragm Gas Meters," Energies, MDPI, vol. 13(11), pages 1-20, June.
    3. Soltanisarvestani, A. & Safavi, A.A., 2021. "Modeling unaccounted-for gas among residential natural gas consumers using a comprehensive fuzzy cognitive map," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 72(C).
    4. Jacek Jaworski & Adrian Dudek, 2020. "Study of the Effects of Changes in Gas Composition as Well as Ambient and Gas Temperature on Errors of Indications of Thermal Gas Meters," Energies, MDPI, vol. 13(20), pages 1-23, October.

    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. Sih Yuliana Wahyuningtyas, 2019. "Self-regulation of online platform and competition policy challenges: A case study on Go-Jek," Competition and Regulation in Network Industries, , vol. 20(1), pages 33-53, March.
    2. Haldrup, Niels & Nielsen, Morten Orregaard, 2006. "A regime switching long memory model for electricity prices," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 135(1-2), pages 349-376.
    3. Lawrence White, 2002. "International Trade In Services: More Than Meets the Eye," Working Papers 02-13, New York University, Leonard N. Stern School of Business, Department of Economics.
    4. Çetin, Tamer & Yasin Eryigit, Kadir, 2013. "The economic effects of government regulation: Evidence from the New York taxicab market," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 25(C), pages 169-177.
    5. Phares, Jonathan & Dobrzykowski, David D. & Prohofsky, Jodi, 2021. "How policy is shaping the macro healthcare delivery supply chain: The emergence of a new tier of retail medical clinics," Business Horizons, Elsevier, vol. 64(3), pages 333-345.
    6. Nancy L. Rose, 2014. "Learning from the Past: Insights for the Regulation of Economic Activity," NBER Chapters, in: Economic Regulation and Its Reform: What Have We Learned?, pages 1-23, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Hellwig, Michael & Polk, Andreas, 2021. "Do political links influence water prices? Determinants of water prices in Germany," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 70(C).
    8. Martin Chalkley, 2018. "Private Provision of Publicly Funded Health Care: The Economics of Ownership," Briefing 002055, Office of Health Economics.
    9. Timothy Besley & Anne Case, 2003. "Political Institutions and Policy Choices: Evidence from the United States," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 41(1), pages 7-73, March.
    10. Catherine C. Eckel & William T. Smith, 2014. "The Discriminating Beta: Prices and Capacity with Correlated Demands," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 81(1), pages 56-67, July.
    11. Samir El-Gazzar & Philip Finn & Charles Tang, 2009. "The Value Relevance of Earnings and Nonearnings Information in Regulated and Deregulated Markets: The Case of the Airline Industry," International Advances in Economic Research, Springer;International Atlantic Economic Society, vol. 15(1), pages 88-101, February.
    12. Jamasb, T. & Mota, R. & Newbery, D. & Pollitt, M., 2004. "‘Electricity Sector Reform in Developing Countries: A Survey of Empirical Evidence on Determinants and Performance’," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 0439, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    13. Chong, Beng-Soon & Liu, Ming-Hua & Altunbas, Yener, 1996. "The impact of universal banking on the risks and returns of Japanese financial institutions," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 4(2-3), pages 181-195, July.
    14. Marco Arnone & Diego Scalise, 2005. "Macroeconomic Effects of Deregulation in Goods Market with Heterogeneous Firms," Macroeconomics 0512015, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    15. Théophile T. Azomahou & Raouf Boucekkine & Phu Nguyen-Vanc, "undated". "Promoting Clean Technologies: The Energy Market Structure Crucially Matters," Working Papers 2008_13, Business School - Economics, University of Glasgow.
    16. Gregory E. Elliehausen, 1998. "The cost of banking regulation: a review of the evidence," Staff Studies 171, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    17. Hervé Dumez & Alain Jeunemaître, 2005. "La démarche narrative en économie," Revue économique, Presses de Sciences-Po, vol. 56(4), pages 983-1005.
    18. Sherman, Roger, 1989. "Institutional design for monopoly regulation," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 5(2-3), pages 245-257.
    19. Beard, T. Randolph & Sweeney, George H. & Gropper, Daniel M., 1995. "Subsidy free pricing of interruptible service contracts," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(1), pages 53-58, January.
    20. Piia Pekola & Ismo Linnosmaa & Hennamari Mikkola, 2017. "Assessing the effects of price regulation and freedom of choice on quality: evidence from the physiotherapy market," Health Economics Review, Springer, vol. 7(1), pages 1-16, December.

    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:eee:juipol:v:29:y:2014:i:c:p:17-24. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.sciencedirect.com/journal/utilities-policy .

    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.