|
Research
Do Energy Efficient Technologies Still Save Energy after Rebound Effects? An Econometric Analysis of Electricity Demand in the Commercial Building Sector (Job Market Paper)
This paper addresses two important questions in the literature of energy efficiency and energy demand: 1) empirically are there net energy savings from adopting energy-efficient building technologies after the rebound effects; 2) what are the price elasticities of electricity use for commercial buildings? I build a structural model of a building��s decision to adopt an energy efficient building technology and subsequent energy demand. The empirical strategy involves a modified Heckman selection model to correct for selection bias of adopting energy-efficient building technologies and two-stage least squares (2SLS) to tackle the endogeneity of average electricity prices. I also look at how other factors influence electricity demand. These factors include principal-agent (owner-tenant) relationship, building principal activities, and year of building construction, etc. The types of energy efficient building technologies analyzed in this paper include energy management and control system (EMCS), economizer cycle and variable air volume (VAV) system. Using building level data from the Commercial Buildings Energy Consumption Survey, the econometric model results show that adopting at least one of EMCS, economizer and VAV technologies can reduce electricity consumption by 56%; EMCS alone can reduce electricity consumption by 29%; economizer alone could reduce the electricity consumption by 4 %; VAV alone can reduce the electricity consumption by 59 %. The long run own price elasticity of electricity consumption estimated by this paper, using 2SLS approach, ranges from -0.9860 ~ -0.6104. Buildings that tend to adopt energy efficient technologies have a larger price elasticity than buildings that do not adopt these technologies. I also find evidence of heterogeneity in price elasticity and the effectiveness of energy-efficient building technologies across buildings with different activities.
Valuation of wind farm tax credit under the uncertainty of parent company’s profitability (joint work with Ali Nouri, Caner Onal and Mengxi Zhu)
In this work we have developed a wind farm pricing framework that has a special focus on accurately estimating the potential benefits of the government subsidies that come in the form of tax credits. Accurate modeling requires a comprehensive model that takes into account the fluctuations in the parent company profits, which have a direct influence on the total present value of the wind farm enterprise. The model was further improved to include an option to expand the number of turbines, which rendered the problem path dependent and required the use of dynamic programming techniques. A simple sensitivity analysis was presented at the end to demonstrate the capabilities of our model.
Strategies for technology upgrading and catch-up of wind turbine manufacturers: Technology acquisition mechanisms and business diversification (joint work with Leonard Ortolano, Under review in the Journal of World Business)
Using firm level data of Chinese wind turbine manufacturing industry form 1998 to 2009, this paper quantifies the effects of technology acquisition mechanisms -- purchasing production licenses from foreign manufacturers, joint design with foreign design firms, joint-ventures and domestic R&D; -- on wind turbine manufacturers ’s technology levels (as measured by turbine size, in MW). It also examines the impacts of government policies and manufacturers ’s business diversification on manufacturers ’s technology levels. The paper uses technology upgrading (measured by increase of turbine size) and catch-up (measured by decrease in the distance to the world technology frontier in terms of turbine size), to measure advances in technology level. The results from econometric modeling studies indicate that technology acquisition mechanism and firm ’s business diversification are statistically significant factors in influencing both technology upgrading and catch-up. The econometric results are shown to have implications for both policymakers and wind turbine manufacturers.
Contract terms and the adoption of energy efficient technologies: a micro-econometric analysis of China ’s energy service companies (joint work with Y. Li)
In this paper we try to understand what are the factors that determine the energy service contract terms (e.g, period, share of revenue, etc) between an energy service company and its client, as well as how these contract terms and some other factors influence the type of energy efficient technologies being installed in the client. We build a game theory approach model. Then we use a dataset of 248 contracts to conduct econometric analysis.
|