We report on an economic experiment that compares outcomes in electricity markets subject to carbon-tax and cap-and-trade policies. Under conditions of uncertainty, price-based and quantity-based policy instruments cannot be truly equivalent, so we compared three matched carbon-tax/cap-and-trade...

Using hourly offer curves from the Italian day-ahead market and the real-time re-dispatch market for the period January 1, 2017 to December 31, 2018, we show how thermal generation unit owners are able to profit from differences between a simplified day-ahead market design that ignores system...

Currently, most U.S. electricity consumers pay a constant price per kWh consumed that accounts for most of their bill. Ongoing developments in the power system increase efficiency gains that can be made from exposing consumers to widely varying wholesale spot prices. Pure spot pricing is not...

Cryptomining, the clearing of cryptocurrency transactions, uses large quantities of electricity. We document that cryptominers' use of local electricity implies higher electricity prices for existing small businesses and households. Studying the electricity market in Upstate NY and using the...

In recent years the analysis of US climate policy on the electricity sector has predominantly deployed electricity planning or capacity expansion models that use deterministic or equilibrium optimization methods. While uncertainty in key input assumptions is considered, it is usually restricted...

The marginal cost of electricity fluctuates hour-by-hour, yet retail customers typically face flat prices. Using data from all seven US wholesale markets and a new method to evaluate alternative rates set in advance that accounts for equilibrium price effects, we estimate efficiency gains from...

Recent energy shortfalls in renewables-dominated electricity markets call for a mechanism to ensure demand is met under all system conditions. We demonstrate severe shortcomings of an increasingly popular mechanism--reliability options--caused by its interaction with fixed-price forward...

Natural gas has replaced coal as the dominant fuel for U.S. electricity generation. However, U.S. states that regulate electric utilities have retired coal more slowly than others. We build a structural model of rate-of-return regulation during an energy transition where utilities face tradeoffs...

Utilities increasingly sell electricity using complex menus of time-constant and time-varying price schedules. We study how to design such a menu to maximize social welfare in a second best environment where the marginal private and external costs of generating electricity vary over time,...