IMPACT OF A RESIDENTIAL TIME OF USE RATE ON PEAK, OFF-PEAK AND TOTAL ENERGY CONSUMPTION

摘要

This study evaluates the impact of a residential time of usernrate pilot implemented by BC Hydro in which customersrnwere randomly assigned to the control group of one ofrnseven treatment groups. There are three main findings asrnfollows. There are three main findings as follows. First,rnwe compared BC Hydro’s rate design with 29 TOU ratesrnoffered by 24 utilities. This comparison suggests that BCrnHydro’s set of TOU rates is reflective of standard utilityrnpractice in rate design. Second, using hourly meteredrnenergy consumption we found that average off peakrnconsumption for the treatment group was 3.2% lower thanrnthat for the control group, average on-peak consumption forrnthe treatment group was 11.1% lower than for the control,rnand average total consumption for the treatment group wasrn5.5% lower than that for the control group. Third, we foundrnthat the estimated elasticity of substitution was 0.06, wasrnvery well determined in a statistical sense, but it wasrnsubstantially lower than for other utilities, which suggestsrnthat the possibilities for peak shifting in a winter peakingrnutility are lower than the possibilities for peak shifting in arnsummer peaking utility.