Utilities Policy最新文献

Price impacts of natural gas chokepoints on China: an energy security analysis of the Russia-Ukraine conflict 天然气价格瓶颈对中国的影响：俄乌冲突的能源安全分析

IF 3.8 3区经济学

Utilities Policy Pub Date : 2025-05-31 DOI: 10.1016/j.jup.2025.101985

Yu Zhang , Xin Yu , Peng Zhang , Haoran Zhang

{"title":"Price impacts of natural gas chokepoints on China: an energy security analysis of the Russia-Ukraine conflict","authors":"Yu Zhang , Xin Yu , Peng Zhang , Haoran Zhang","doi":"10.1016/j.jup.2025.101985","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jup.2025.101985","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The Russia-Ukraine conflict, one of the most significant geopolitical events in recent years, has had profound and lasting effects on the global energy landscape, particularly the natural gas market. This study employs a difference-in-differences (DID) methodology to evaluate the impact of the conflict and EU emergency policies on natural gas prices in the EU, utilizing data from the Dutch Title Transfer Facility (TTF) for the period 2020–2024 divided into short, medium, and long-term phases. The findings reveal that (1) the conflict significantly drove up EU natural gas prices, with increases of 381.9 %, 271.6 %, and 172.7 % in the short, medium, and long terms, respectively, compared to the control group, demonstrating both persistent and diminishing effects; (2) implementing EU emergency policies initially resulted in a 396 % price increase compared to the control group, indicating a pronounced short-term negative impact that weakened over time; (3) rising prices of alternative energy sources continue to support increases in natural gas prices; and (4) a close geopolitical relationship with Russia may temporarily ease price pressures, while strong ties with Ukraine tend to elevate prices, though these effects quickly diminish. In conclusion, China should enhance the identification of strategic risks, design effective emergency plans considering potential adverse impacts, strengthen the construction of alternative energy systems and gas reserves, and leverage the rigid characteristics of its natural gas supply chain to improve overall resilience and efficiency.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":23554,"journal":{"name":"Utilities Policy","volume":"96 ","pages":"Article 101985"},"PeriodicalIF":3.8,"publicationDate":"2025-05-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144178050","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Regulatory Impact Assessment in the energy transition era: insights from the UK experience 能源转型时代的监管影响评估：来自英国经验的见解

IF 3.8 3区经济学

Utilities Policy Pub Date : 2025-05-30 DOI: 10.1016/j.jup.2025.101943

Michael Grubb , Ben Hinder , Laura Dye , Hannah Nixon

{"title":"Regulatory Impact Assessment in the energy transition era: insights from the UK experience","authors":"Michael Grubb , Ben Hinder , Laura Dye , Hannah Nixon","doi":"10.1016/j.jup.2025.101943","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jup.2025.101943","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Independent energy regulators need analytic frameworks to assess and defend their regulatory decisions. This paper critiques the traditional economic recommendation and explains a new approach applied in Great Britain. We find reliance on quantified cost-benefit analysis (CBA) as the dominant metric inadequate, particularly in the context of the clean energy transition. We do so by exploring the theoretical and practical limitations of CBA and the GB energy regulator Ofgem's response to these, drawing on experience of the authors who worked with and for Ofgem. We outline the unavoidable complexities that climate change, in particular, created considering the division of responsibilities between the government and the regulator and describe the major revisions to Ofgem's Regulatory Impact Assessment (RIA) framework that sought to address the resulting challenges.</div><div>We identify limitations of exclusive reliance on emission targets and the ‘social cost of carbon’ as a tool to include climate change concerns and related unquantifiable impacts in CBA. Given the realities of the purposive energy transition, while aggregated monetised CBA remains an (important) component of RIA, we explain why Ofgem concluded that regulatory decision-making benefits from the structured articulation of other impacts. In particular, Ofgem focused on distributional consequences for energy consumers and a direct analysis of how regulatory decisions may affect the strategic and sustainability dimensions of energy system pathways. Finally, we summarise an application of the expanded Ofgem RIA framework to the regulation and evaluation of electricity interconnector investments, and the outcomes, along with the evolution of Ofgem's RIA framework itself.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":23554,"journal":{"name":"Utilities Policy","volume":"96 ","pages":"Article 101943"},"PeriodicalIF":3.8,"publicationDate":"2025-05-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144166312","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

The impact of the cost-of-living crisis on water poverty in Scotland: A lived-experience analysis 生活成本危机对苏格兰水贫困的影响：生活经验分析

IF 3.8 3区经济学

Utilities Policy Pub Date : 2025-05-28 DOI: 10.1016/j.jup.2025.101983

Heather K. Anderson , A. Bradley Duthie , Craig W. McDougall , Richard S. Quilliam , Heather Price

引用次数: 0

Scenario analysis of Saudi Arabia's residential solar energy incentives 沙特阿拉伯住宅太阳能激励方案的情景分析

IF 3.8 3区经济学

Utilities Policy Pub Date : 2025-05-27 DOI: 10.1016/j.jup.2025.101970

Sikandar Abdul Qadir , Amjad Ali , Md Tasbirul Islam , Muhammad Shahid

{"title":"Scenario analysis of Saudi Arabia's residential solar energy incentives","authors":"Sikandar Abdul Qadir , Amjad Ali , Md Tasbirul Islam , Muhammad Shahid","doi":"10.1016/j.jup.2025.101970","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jup.2025.101970","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Incentives for renewable energy are essential for advancing sustainability; however, the global transition to renewable energy faces several challenges, including a lack of financing, particularly in countries where fossil fuels are subsidised. The residential sector in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia accounts for 48 % of the total generated electricity. This study focuses on reducing residential energy demand by promoting rooftop photovoltaic systems in tenant-occupied buildings, where direct installation is often impractical. To encourage investment, it is crucial to provide building owners with well-structured financial incentives that enhance the economic appeal of solar adoption. A comprehensive framework is proposed, incorporating capital incentives, production-based incentives, net metering, and net billing policies. Techno-economic analyses are conducted under various constraints to minimise the net present cost of solar PV systems, with further evaluation based on key economic indicators such as levelised energy cost, payback period, and return on investment. The results show that with a 50 % renewable energy share and applying all incentives, the NPC decreases from Saudi Rials (SAR) 703,974 to SAR 302,434, achieving an energy cost of SAR 0.097/kWh. The proposed framework offers a practical and economically viable pathway to accelerate solar energy adoption in residential buildings, contributing meaningfully to the sustainable energy transition.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":23554,"journal":{"name":"Utilities Policy","volume":"96 ","pages":"Article 101970"},"PeriodicalIF":3.8,"publicationDate":"2025-05-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144147663","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

The impact of announcing a payment assistance program on UK household water consumption: A regression discontinuity analysis 宣布支付援助计划对英国家庭用水的影响：一个回归不连续分析

IF 3.8 3区经济学

Utilities Policy Pub Date : 2025-05-27 DOI: 10.1016/j.jup.2025.101981

Emmanouil Tyllianakis , Nikos Rigas , Konstantinos E. Kounetas

{"title":"The impact of announcing a payment assistance program on UK household water consumption: A regression discontinuity analysis","authors":"Emmanouil Tyllianakis , Nikos Rigas , Konstantinos E. Kounetas","doi":"10.1016/j.jup.2025.101981","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jup.2025.101981","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Information campaigns aimed at social norms are a mainstay tool for utilities. The announcement effect of such policies is usually ignored in favour of ex-post examinations of campaigns' outcomes. This paper examines the effects of announcing a ‘help-to-pay’ program from a United Kingdom (UK) water utility company for households facing a uniform price for water. This study uses data for around 6000 Yorkshire Water households between 2018 and 2020, adopting cross-sectional Regression Discontinuity (RD) and regression approaches. Leveraging household characteristics, social characteristics and weather-related information such as rainfall and temperature at the regional level, this study explains household water consumption behaviour on and around the announced £350 per year water bill threshold. Results indicate a discontinuity in annual household water consumption around the threshold, and announcing the eligibility criteria of the help-to-pay program results in higher water consumption for households meeting some criteria (11.9k litres/household/year). Through falsification tests, evidence exists of household strategic behaviour around the threshold. With water bills in the UK scheduled to increase by up to 40 % in the coming years, this research provides valuable insights into the effect that announcing bill support schemes can have and insights on potential strategic behaviour on behalf of households attempting to offset costs.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":23554,"journal":{"name":"Utilities Policy","volume":"96 ","pages":"Article 101981"},"PeriodicalIF":3.8,"publicationDate":"2025-05-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144147664","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

A multi-period, multi-criteria model for dynamic performance assessment of the Portuguese water sector 葡萄牙水务部门动态绩效评估的多时期，多标准模型

IF 3.8 3区经济学

Utilities Policy Pub Date : 2025-05-24 DOI: 10.1016/j.jup.2025.101973

Sandra Tralhão, Rita Martins, João Paulo Costa

引用次数: 0

Modeling the impact of price and usage efficiency on domestic water demand in Saudi Arabia 沙特阿拉伯用水价格和用水效率对生活用水需求的影响建模

IF 3.8 3区经济学

Utilities Policy Pub Date : 2025-05-23 DOI: 10.1016/j.jup.2025.101971

Muhammad Javid

{"title":"Modeling the impact of price and usage efficiency on domestic water demand in Saudi Arabia","authors":"Muhammad Javid","doi":"10.1016/j.jup.2025.101971","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jup.2025.101971","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The main objective of this paper is twofold. First, it seeks to identify the key drivers of domestic water demand in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) by estimating two sets of water demand models covering 1994 to 2023. The first model relates water demand to water price, income, and population, while the second model adds water use efficiency (WUE) as an additional explanatory variable to assess its impact on future domestic water demand. Second, the paper projects Saudi Arabia's domestic water demand through 2050 based on the estimates derived from both models. The estimation results show that all coefficients are significant and align with theoretical expectations. The estimated price elasticities of water demand are −0.17 and −0.20 for Models 1 and 2, respectively. The estimated elasticity of WUE is −0.39. Projections based on Model 1 suggest that total domestic water demand will rise from 3.6 billion m<sup>3</sup>/year in 2023 to approximately 8.14 billion m<sup>3</sup>/year by 2050. The results indicate that domestic water demand in KSA could be reduced by 32 % through improvements in WUE and by 4 % through water price reforms. These findings underscore the significant role of WUE enhancements in managing domestic water demand in KSA.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":23554,"journal":{"name":"Utilities Policy","volume":"96 ","pages":"Article 101971"},"PeriodicalIF":3.8,"publicationDate":"2025-05-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144135180","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Decision model for selecting a portfolio of non-technical loss mitigation projects for power distribution systems 配电系统非技术减损项目组合选择的决策模型

IF 3.8 3区经济学

Utilities Policy Pub Date : 2025-05-21 DOI: 10.1016/j.jup.2025.101967

Duan Vilela Ferreira , Vinicius de Oliveira , Tarso Vilela Ferreira , Ana Paula Henriques de Gusmão

{"title":"Decision model for selecting a portfolio of non-technical loss mitigation projects for power distribution systems","authors":"Duan Vilela Ferreira , Vinicius de Oliveira , Tarso Vilela Ferreira , Ana Paula Henriques de Gusmão","doi":"10.1016/j.jup.2025.101967","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jup.2025.101967","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Non-technical losses (NTLs), often caused by fraud and theft, harm the quality of energy supply, increase tariffs, and impact sustainability. To address these issues, companies and researchers have increasingly invested in technologies, procedures, and projects to mitigate such losses. Considering the limited resources of distribution companies and the varied nature of NTL mitigation projects, supporting managers when selecting the most suitable projects becomes essential. This research, therefore, proposes a multicriteria model based on FITradeoff for portfolio problems to support managers in selecting a portfolio of NTL mitigation projects. The proposed model comprises several benefits, including the usage of partial information, thus reducing cognitive efforts from decision makers, and the benefit-to-cost ratio approach eliminates the need to compute and evaluate all possible portfolios, as is the case in combinatorial methods, thereby minimizing computational efforts. To demonstrate the model's effectiveness, a case study based on actual data is presented, outlining the steps followed from problem structuring and data gathering to the application through the decision support system of the FITradeoff method. Results demonstrate the model's effectiveness in capturing the decision-maker's preferences and generating recommendations accordingly, as well as its flexibility during the decision-making process and its potential to be replicated in other contexts.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":23554,"journal":{"name":"Utilities Policy","volume":"95 ","pages":"Article 101967"},"PeriodicalIF":3.8,"publicationDate":"2025-05-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144098959","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

A system dynamics model of the investment capacity of China's power grid under the third regulatory cycle of transmission and distribution tariff reform 输配电价改革第三次调控周期下中国电网投资能力的系统动力学模型

IF 3.8 3区经济学

Utilities Policy Pub Date : 2025-05-20 DOI: 10.1016/j.jup.2025.101968

Xiaomin Xu , Zhiyi Wang , Yingying Zhou , Haoxu Cui , Shipeng Zheng , Xiao Guan

引用次数: 0

A case study of financing zero-emission power-to-gas technologies in Spain 西班牙零排放电转气技术融资案例研究

IF 3.8 3区经济学

Utilities Policy Pub Date : 2025-05-19 DOI: 10.1016/j.jup.2025.101965

Pilar Portillo-Tarragona , Eva Llera-Sastresa , Sabina Scarpellini , Darío Benito-Bentué

{"title":"A case study of financing zero-emission power-to-gas technologies in Spain","authors":"Pilar Portillo-Tarragona , Eva Llera-Sastresa , Sabina Scarpellini , Darío Benito-Bentué","doi":"10.1016/j.jup.2025.101965","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jup.2025.101965","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>A zero-emissions scenario entails new energy systems minimizing short and medium-term carbon emissions and transitioning to renewable sources in the long term. In the face of these challenges, information about investments in sustainable energy technologies has to be considered a priority issue for many industry organizations, as it is still an incipient topic in academic literature. In this scenario, this study considers and prioritizes the financial resources mobilized for investments in power-to-gas technologies because they contribute to producing clean and efficient fuels from renewables or carbon-neutral sources. This process typically involves electrolysis to produce hydrogen converted to synthetic gas, which is used as a storable form of renewable energy. This study is essentially qualitative and exploratory, based on semi-structured interviews with experts to help define and classify the financial resources that investments require for these technologies in Spain. We study the institutional influence on the power-to-gas deployment and reflect on how the mobilization of specific resources can contribute to these zero-emission technologies and the related social metrics for reporting sustainable investments, also from the perspective of a Spanish financial institution as an exploratory case study. This study provides theoretical and practical insights regarding the current and future mobilization of financial resources for investments in power-to-gas technologies and energy utilities’ sustainable finance policies in a zero-emissions scenario.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":23554,"journal":{"name":"Utilities Policy","volume":"95 ","pages":"Article 101965"},"PeriodicalIF":3.8,"publicationDate":"2025-05-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144084352","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0