Date of Award

11-2016

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelor of Science (B.S.) in Economics and University Honors

Department

Economics

First Advisor

Peter Stiffler

Subjects

Peak-load pricing, Electric power consumption -- Oregon -- Forecasting -- Case studies, United States. Bonneville Power Administration

DOI

10.15760/honors.344

Abstract

October 2011 Bonneville Power Administration changed their wholesale electricity demand charge from a coincident to a non-coincident demand charge. This paper seeks to test the effect that this change had on overall electricity peak load on Bonneville. To do this an econometric model was created using data from ten years before the change occurred. This model was then used to estimate monthly peak load amounts between October 2011 and September 2014. These estimates were compared against the real meter data to estimate an effect of the rate change. Based on this model the average monthly peak load reduced by 0.25%. While the average effect was small there was a substantial shifting of peak loads with, for example, June peaks increasing on average by 14% and January peak loads decreasing on average by 8%. Overall, this paper shows that changing to non-coincident demand charges had a small beneficial effect on average peaks and a substantial beneficial effect on winter peaks.

Persistent Identifier

http://archives.pdx.edu/ds/psu/18708

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