K.H. Tiedemann (Canada)
Time of use rates, electricity demand, energy conservation, elasticity of substitution.
This study evaluates the impact of a residential time of use rate pilot implemented by BC Hydro in which customers were randomly assigned to the control group of one of seven treatment groups. There are three main findings as follows. There are three main findings as follows. First, we compared BC Hydro’s rate design with 29 TOU rates offered by 24 utilities. This comparison suggests that BC Hydro’s set of TOU rates is reflective of standard utility practice in rate design. Second, using hourly metered energy consumption we found that average off peak consumption for the treatment group was 3.2% lower than that for the control group, average on-peak consumption for the treatment group was 11.1% lower than for the control, and average total consumption for the treatment group was 5.5% lower than that for the control group. Third, we found that the estimated elasticity of substitution was 0.06, was very well determined in a statistical sense, but it was substantially lower than for other utilities, which suggests that the possibilities for peak shifting in a winter peaking utility are lower than the possibilities for peak shifting in a summer peaking utility.
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