Importance of Purchase Prices in Electric Utility Fuel Choice: An Analysis of Recent Evidence.

摘要

This paper assesses the future role of oil/natural gas in the electric utility industry, in particular over the next several years. In doing this, it reviews and interprets the impressions and reactions of experts to the changing fossil fuels market. Further, it presents an independent statistical analysis of fuel-choice decisions since the early 1980s. The Electric Fuel Use Database (EFUD) is developed from EIA sources to create sixty months of data covering the period 1982--1986 and 180 electric utilities. The statistical analysis focuses on the decisions of electric utilities to consume different fossil fuels during a period in which oil/natural gas became increasingly attractive. A regression model is developed to measure the separate effects of fuel prices and other factors affecting fuel choice. The model, in particular, is intended to measure the extent of interfuel substitution by electric utilities in recent years. 15 refs., 2 figs., 14 tabs.