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Why Are Electricity Prices Increasing? - An Industry-Wide Perspective
글쓴이 관리자 (IP: *.176.22.203) 작성일 2018-04-01 22:46 조회수 328
1. 저자 : Gregory Basheda, Marc W. Chupka, Peter Fox-Penner, Johannes P. Pfeifenberger, Adam Schumacher The Brattle Group
2. 개요 : For more than a century, the electric power industry has supplied the United States with abundant and reliable electricity. The industry that brought “smokeless light” to American cities in the late 1800s now supplies the power for more than 176 million personal computers and a national network of 208 million cellular phones, contributing to both industrial productivity and consumer comforts that enhance our standard of living.
The power industry now faces an unprecedented challenge. At a time of record high fuel prices, historic environmental challenges, and industry structural change, the nation’s demand for reliable electric power continues to grow. While much of the nation’s power infrastructure is aging, the industry must keep up with the need for more capacity, increased reliability and power quality, and lower environmental impacts. Thus, the industry must invest in a new generation of power plants, environmental controls, transmission lines, and distribution system expansions and upgrades.
While these new investments will maintain reliability, diversify our fuel mix, and increase environmental performance, they come with added costs. Electricity price increases are occurring across the United States, among all types of electricity providers, to one degree or another. The extent to which increasing utility costs are recovered in rates will determine the financial condition of the industry and affect its ability to make future generation, transmission, distribution, and environmental investments in a timely manner. With appropriate rate treatment, the industry will continue to provide reliable services at reasonable costs. Conversely, if segments of the industry become unable to finance new investments in a timely or costeffective manner, the ultimate costs will be borne by the local economies and consumers served by these utilities, as well as by utility shareholders. Failure to receive adequate rate treatment could impact the quality of service, impair the ability of the utility industry to meet growing demands for clean, reliable power, and undermine the financial health of the utility industry.
This report examines the factors underlying the recent increases in electricity prices and the potential impacts of these factors on the industry’s financial condition. We focus primarily on cost changes experienced over the past five years and the projected trends in these costs over the next decade. The trends we examine affect all electricity suppliers, while the focus of this paper is the impact of higher costs and capital expenditures on rates that require regulatory approval. Our analysis examines the investor-owned segment of the industry as a whole, using a national perspective. While the circumstances of each provider’s costs and prices are unique, and must be considered individually, several common factors and trends are influencing the entire industry. Nevertheless, the analyses and conclusions in this report should not be construed as applying to any particular utility without further careful consideration.
5. 출처 : EDISON FOUNDATION(인터넷에서 검색하였음)
파일 Brattle_report_Web.pdf(893.7K)