IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/enejou/v37y2016i4p187-213.html

The Environmental Impacts of Fuel Switching Electricity Generators

Author

Listed:
  • J. Scott Holladay
  • Steven Soloway

Abstract

We examine the environmental and policy impacts of switching from oil-fired to natural gas-fired generation in New York City (NYC). We create an hourly panel of the fuel use of NYC’s generators and use a semi-parametric approach to identify the fuel-price spread that induces the switch from oil to gas. We find that NYC’s pollution emissions decrease significantly after generators switch to natural gas. Around two-thirds of these emission reductions come from reduced emission intensity within plants, while the remaining third comes from less intense dispatch of oil fired generators. To illustrate the policy impact, we simulate the introduction of a real time pricing (RTP) program in NYC. The results suggest that the environmental benefits of the RTP decreased by nearly 30% due largely to fuel switching. While we focus on RTP, these results can be used to evaluate any energy policy that has a heterogeneous impact across time or the demand profile.

Suggested Citation

  • J. Scott Holladay & Steven Soloway, 2016. "The Environmental Impacts of Fuel Switching Electricity Generators," The Energy Journal, , vol. 37(4), pages 187-213, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:enejou:v:37:y:2016:i:4:p:187-213
    DOI: 10.5547/01956574.37.4.jhol
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.5547/01956574.37.4.jhol
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.5547/01956574.37.4.jhol?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
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Graff Zivin, Joshua S. & Kotchen, Matthew J. & Mansur, Erin T., 2014. "Spatial and temporal heterogeneity of marginal emissions: Implications for electric cars and other electricity-shifting policies," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 107(PA), pages 248-268.
    2. repec:aen:journl:2006v27-04-a06 is not listed on IDEAS
    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. Sheldon, Tamara L. & Dua, Rubal, 2018. "Gasoline savings from clean vehicle adoption," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 120(C), pages 418-424.
    2. de Chalendar, Jacques A. & Benson, Sally M., 2021. "A physics-informed data reconciliation framework for real-time electricity and emissions tracking," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 304(C).
    3. Andor, Mark A. & Gerster, Andreas & Peters, Jörg & Schmidt, Christoph M., 2020. "Social Norms and Energy Conservation Beyond the US," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 103(C).
    4. Erik P. Johnson & Juan Moreno-Cruz, 2020. "Congestion in the Electricity Transmission System Redistributes Pollution across Long Distances," CESifo Working Paper Series 8483, CESifo.
    5. Graff Zivin, Joshua S. & Kotchen, Matthew J. & Mansur, Erin T., 2014. "Spatial and temporal heterogeneity of marginal emissions: Implications for electric cars and other electricity-shifting policies," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 107(PA), pages 248-268.
    6. Lang, Corey & Okwelum, Edson, 2015. "The mitigating effect of strategic behavior on the net benefits of a direct load control program," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 141-148.
    7. Soomin Woo & Zhe Fu & Elpiniki Apostolaki-Iosifidou & Timothy E. Lipman, 2021. "Economic and Environmental Benefits for Electricity Grids from Spatiotemporal Optimization of Electric Vehicle Charging," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(24), pages 1-22, December.
    8. Will, Christian & Zimmermann, Florian & Ensslen, Axel & Fraunholz, Christoph & Jochem, Patrick & Keles, Dogan, 2024. "Can electric vehicle charging be carbon neutral? Uniting smart charging and renewables," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 371(C).
    9. Erbaş, Mehmet & Kabak, Mehmet & Özceylan, Eren & Çetinkaya, Cihan, 2018. "Optimal siting of electric vehicle charging stations: A GIS-based fuzzy Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 163(C), pages 1017-1031.
    10. Olkkonen, Ville & Hirvonen, Janne & Heljo, Juhani & Syri, Sanna, 2021. "Effectiveness of building stock sustainability measures in a low-carbon energy system: A scenario analysis for Finland until 2050," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 235(C).
    11. Bi, Zicheng & Kan, Tianze & Mi, Chunting Chris & Zhang, Yiming & Zhao, Zhengming & Keoleian, Gregory A., 2016. "A review of wireless power transfer for electric vehicles: Prospects to enhance sustainable mobility," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 179(C), pages 413-425.
    12. Kim, Hyunjung & Kim, Dae-Wook & Kim, Man-Keun, 2022. "Economics of charging infrastructure for electric vehicles in Korea," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 164(C).
    13. Abrell, Jan & Kosch, Mirjam & Rausch, Sebastian, 2019. "Carbon abatement with renewables: Evaluating wind and solar subsidies in Germany and Spain," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 169(C), pages 172-202.
    14. Stephen P. Holland & Erin T. Mansur & Nicholas Z. Muller & Andrew J. Yates, 2016. "Are There Environmental Benefits from Driving Electric Vehicles? The Importance of Local Factors," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 106(12), pages 3700-3729, December.
    15. Steven M. Smith, 2019. "The Relative Economic Merits of Alternative Water Rights," Working Papers 2019-08, Colorado School of Mines, Division of Economics and Business.
    16. Stephen P. Holland & Erin T. Mansur & Nicholas Z. Muller & Andrew J. Yates, 2019. "Distributional Effects of Air Pollution from Electric Vehicle Adoption," Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, University of Chicago Press, vol. 6(S1), pages 65-94.
    17. Tamara L. Sheldon & Rubal Dua & Omar Abdullah Alharbib, 2023. "How Cost-effective are Electric Vehicle Subsidies in Reducing Tailpipe-CO2 Emissions? An Analysis of Major Electric Vehicle Markets," The Energy Journal, , vol. 44(3), pages 223-250, May.
    18. Linn, Joshua & Muehlenbachs, Lucija, 2018. "The heterogeneous impacts of low natural gas prices on consumers and the environment," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 89(C), pages 1-28.
    19. Holladay, J. Scott & Price, Michael K. & Wanamaker, Marianne, 2015. "The perverse impact of calling for energy conservation," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 110(C), pages 1-18.
    20. Maxwell Woody & Michael T. Craig & Parth T. Vaishnav & Geoffrey M. Lewis & Gregory A. Keoleian, 2022. "Optimizing future cost and emissions of electric delivery vehicles," Journal of Industrial Ecology, Yale University, vol. 26(3), pages 1108-1122, June.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    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:sae:enejou:v:37:y:2016:i:4:p:187-213. 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: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    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.