This paper identifies the key features of successful electricity market designs that are particularly relevant to the experience of low-income countries. Important features include: (1) the match between the short-term market used to dispatch generation units and the physical operation of the electricity network, (2) effective regulatory and market mechanisms to ensure long-term generation resource adequacy, (3) appropriate mechanisms to mitigate local market power, and (4) mechanisms to allow the active involvement of final demand in a short-term market. The paper provides a recommended baseline market design that reflects the experience of the past 25 years
with electricity restructuring processes. It then suggests a simplified version of this market design ideally suited to the proposed East and Western Sub-Sahara Africa regional wholesale market that is likely to realise a substantial amount of the economic benefits from forming a regional market with minimal implementation cost and regulatory burden. Recommendations are also provided for modifying the Southern African Power Pool to increase the economic benefits realised from its formation. How this market design supports the cost-effective integration of renewables is discussed and future enhancements are proposed that support the integration of a greater share
of intermittent renewables. The paper closes with proposed directions for future research in the area of electricity market design in developing countries.

The recent shift in the United States from coal to natural gas as a primary feedstock for the production of electric power has reduced the intensity of sectoral carbon dioxide emissions, but—due to gaps in monitoring—its downstream pollution-related effects have been less well understood. Here, I analyse old units that have been taken offline and new units that have come online to empirically link technology switches to observed aerosol and ozone changes and subsequent impacts on human health, crop yields and regional climate. Between 2005 and 2016 in the continental United States, decommissioning of a coal-fired unit was associated with reduced nearby pollution concentrations and subsequent reductions in mortality and increases in crop yield. In total during this period, the shutdown of coal-fired units saved an estimated 26,610 (5%–95% confidence intervals (CI), 2,725–49,680) lives and 570 million (249–878 million) bushels of corn, soybeans and wheat in their immediate vicinities; these estimates increase when pollution transport-related spillovers are included. Changes in primary and secondary aerosol burdens also altered regional atmospheric reflectivity, raising the average top of atmosphere instantaneous radiative forcing by 0.50 W m⁻². Although there are considerable benefits of decommissioning older coal-fired units, the newer natural gas and coal-fired units that have supplanted them are not entirely benign.

Abstract

Abstract

We report on the results of a field experiment in Puebla, Mexico that informed randomly-selected households facing a nonlinear price schedule about how different electricity-consuming actions might change their electricity bills. Households that received this 20-minute, in-person intervention reduced their electricity use, with much of this reduction driven by those that paid the highest marginal price for electricity. The estimated impacts were durable with no observed rebound for at least a year. Households with less educational attainment reduced use the most, consistent with the conclusion that the intervention imparted new knowledge to consumers that led to this observed behavior change. The high rate at which customers accepted the intervention, the resulting consumption decrease, and low implementation costs make this intervention cost-effective relative to several previous energy conservation campaigns in Mexico.