Market Impacts of a Nuclear Power Plant Closure

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Davis, Lucas; Hausman, Catherine
• 署名单位: University of California System; University of California Berkeley; National Bureau of Economic Research; University of Michigan System; University of Michigan
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC JOURNAL-APPLIED ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1945-7782
• DOI: 10.1257/app.20140473
• 发表日期: 2016
• 页码: 92-122
• 关键词: electricity markets; networks; policies

摘要

Falling revenues and rising costs have put US nuclear plants in financial trouble, and some threaten to close. To understand the potential private and social consequences, we examine the abrupt closure of the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) in 2012. Using a novel econometric approach, we show that the lost generation from SONGS was met largely by increased in-state natural gas generation. In the twelve months following the closure, natural gas generation costs increased by $350 million. The closure also created binding transmission constraints, causing short-run inefficiencies and potentially making it more profitable for certain plants to act noncompetitively.