• Energy Research
• 13. Climate action close

Abstract The aim of this paper is to re-examine the relationship between coal consumption and real GDP of China with the use of panel data. This paper applies modern panel data techniques to help shed light on the importance of the heterogeneity among different regions within China. Empirical analyses are conducted for the full panel as well as three subgroups of the panel. The empirical results show that coal consumption and GDP are both I(1) and cointegrated in all regional groupings. Heterogeneity is found in the GDP equation of the full panel. The regional causality tests reveal that the coal consumption–GDP relationship is bidirectional in the Coastal and Central regions whereas causality is unidirectional from GDP to coal consumption in the Western region. Thus, energy conservation measures will not adversely affect the economic growth of the Western region but such measures will likely encumber the economy of the Coastal and Central regions, where most of the coal intensive industries are concentrated.

Abstract China’s ambitious decarbonization strategy disaggregates the national energy conservation target by province. Using panel data of 30 provinces for 1995–2017, we revisit China’s energy-growth nexus that considers the likely cross-section dependence among the provinces within each of China’s three regions. Our key finding is a bidirectional causal relationship of energy (natural log of per capita energy consumption) and income (natural log of per capita real GDP) for the Eastern and Central regions and a unidirectional causal relationship from income to energy for the Western region. The Eastern and Central regions’ bidirectional relationship suggests caution in China’s energy conservation policy which may decelerate these regions’ economic growth. The Western region’s unidirectional relationship suggests promoting energy conservation without adversely affecting this region’s economic growth. Hence, the East and Central regions’ conservation effort should be accompanied by cost-effective development of emissions-free renewable resources like hydro, solar and wind for displacing China’s fossil-fuel consumption.

While price responsiveness of residential demand for natural gas has important implications on resource planning and energy modelling, its estimates from prior studies are very diverse. Applying panel data analysis and five parametric specifications to monthly data for the lower 48 states in 1990–2019, we estimate own-price elasticities of residential demand for natural gas in the United States (US). Using results from cross-section dependence (CD) test, panel unit root tests, panel time-series estimators, and rolling-window analysis, we document: (1) the statistically significant (p-value ≤ 0.05) static own-price elasticity estimates are −0.271 to −0.486, short-run −0.238 to −0.555 and long-run −0.323 to −0.796; (2) these estimates vary by elasticity type, sample period, parametric specification, treatment of CD and assumption of partial adjustment; (3) erroneously ignoring the highly significant (p-value < 0.01) CD shrinks the size of these estimates that vary seasonally, regionally, and nonlinearly over time; and (4) residential natural gas shortage costs decline with the size of own-price elasticity estimates. These findings suggest that achieving deep decarbonization may require strategies that do not rely solely on prices, such as energy efficiency standards and demand-side-management programs. Demand response programs may prove useful for managing natural gas shortages.

This paper revisits the renewable energy-economic growth nexus in seven European countries for the 34-year period of 1985–2018. As the data is in annual frequency, panel data methodologies are employed to benefit from increased explanatory power of the econometric analysis. Electricity generation share weighted price indexes of coal and natural gas are included in a demand specification together with real GDP in explaining renewable energy consumption. Long-run causality is found to flow from all three explanatory variables to renewable energy consumption. Short-run causality is also detected from the two fossil fuel prices to renewable energy consumption. Our results provide empirical support to the important role of economic growth and non-renewable energy prices in the renewable energy transition. On the other hand, renewable energy consumption, capital and labour enter a production equation in determining economic output. The findings show no evidence of Granger causality from renewable energy consumption to economic output.

Hong Kong residents’ willingness-to-pay estimate for a 30 percent emissions reduction via natural-gas-fired generation is an 18 percent annual electricity bill increase, twice the estimate for nuclear power. Since these WTP estimates are below the projected bill increase required to achieve the government's emissions reduction target, they suggest that a narrow supply-side focus on the generation fuel mix may not be publicly acceptable. The solution is a more comprehensive policy that would include energy efficiency investment and vehicular emissions reductions.

Abstarct Using a large sample of customer-day observations from BC Hydro’s residential optional dynamic pricing pilot for the winter-peaking city of Campbell River in British Columbia, Canada, we estimate a system of two electricity demand regressions for daily peak and off-peak periods during November 2007 to February 2008. Our findings support using automatic load control-enhanced dynamic pricing to shave a smart electric grid’s system peak demand and improve the grid’s capacity utilization.