Electricity demand has not become more price-responsive despite ninety years of technological change
I find this paper insightful right up until the end: “Energy planners have long assumed that electricity demand will grow more price-responsive…. …responsiveness shows no upward trend across nine decades of data; if anything, the most technology-rich settings, including time-of-use pricing, are the least price-responsive in total consumption.” To me this says that due to a century without real competition and associated market discovery we don’t understand the power market nor how to price it. At the end of the paper is when the authors lose me by invoking the same old central planner thinking: “…broader demand flexibility will have to be engineered and paid for, through enabling technology, contracts, and program design.”
Here’s a different idea. Let’s allow real competition and the associated market discovery so we can find out how the power market works and how to price it. That’s what CRE would enable. Contact us to learn more.
