Electricity Bills and Climate Change: Should Energy Hogs Pay More?

This is a hybrid event. For those attending virtually, a Zoom link will be sent out the day of the event.

Boxed lunches will be available to go following the talk!

Rapidly rising electricity bills in a few states foreshadow the impact of climate change on utility customers everywhere. What costs are driving those bills and what are the options for covering them? Some alternatives focus on distributing these costs according to wealth or income, while others would allocate a greater share to the heaviest electricity consumers, the so-called “energy hogs.” Visiting Scholar Severin Borenstein discusses the equity and economic efficiency implications of each cost recovery approach, and then takes a closer look at the arguments for having “energy hogs” bear a disproportionate share.

Speaker

Severin Borenstein is E.T. Grether Professor of Business Administration and Public Policy at the Haas School of Business and faculty director of the Energy Institute at Haas. He is also Director emeritus of the University of California Energy Institute (1994-2014). He received his AB from UC Berkeley and PhD in Economics from MIT. His research focuses on business competition, strategy, and regulation. He has published extensively on the airline industry, the oil and gasoline industries, and electricity markets. His current research projects include the economics of renewable energy, economic policies for reducing greenhouse gases, and alternative models of retail electricity pricing. Borenstein is also a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research in Cambridge, MA.

Moderator

Sanya Carley is the faculty co-director of the Kleinman Center and Presidential Distinguished Professor of Energy Policy and City Planning at the Stuart Weitzman School of Design. She holds secondary appointments at the Wharton School and the School of Social Policy and Practice. She also co-directs the Energy Justice Lab and is a Resources for the Future (RFF) university fellow.

Carley’s research focuses on energy justice and just transitions, energy insecurity, electricity and transportation markets, and public perceptions of energy infrastructure and technologies. With the Energy Justice Lab team, she built and maintains the Utility Disconnection Dashboard. Carley is an author of the Fifth National Climate Assessment report and a member of the Innovation Policy Forum and the Roundtable on Macroeconomics and Climate-related Risks and Opportunities, respectively, for the National Academies.

Please note this is a hybrid event. We look forward to welcoming guests to the Kleinman Center’s Energy Forum. In accordance with the University of Pennsylvania’s COVID-19 guidelines, masks are optional for all visitors. Boxed lunches will be available to go following the event!