Least Cost Selection of Energy Conservation Measures for Regulated Gas Utilities
1 July 1993
Dr. Stuart Harshbarger with Dr. Vladimir Greenberg
In 1988, the District of Columbia Public Service Commission ordered District of Columbia Natural Gas to design and implement an integrated resource plan containing the least-cost combination of energy conservation programs in order to meet specific energy reduction targets by the year 2000. In response, NERA Vice President Dr. Stuart Harshbarger and Dr. Vladimir Greenberg developed several algorithms to select the most effective combination of programs.
In this article, the authors present these algorithms and demonstrate that least-cost planning within an equilibrium system provides the basis for identifying the appropriate scope of any individual DSM program or group of DSM programs. Drs. Harshbarger and Greenberg use the algorithms they developed to explore how much program participation is desirable and whether an alternative mix of DSM programs is more or less cost effective than the specific program being considered for use by District of Columbia Natural Gas. They also discuss new algorithms under development, which can be used to determine whether a conservation program is more or less cost effective than a competing supply-side resource.
This paper was subsequently published in Energy Economics, July 1993, Vol. 15, Number 3.
