EXPLORING THE VALUE OF ELECTRICITY

Intended for electric utility managers, directors, R&D and power system planners, economists, energy engineers, electrical manufacturers, and others involved in the field, this first-of-its-kind book provides an in-depth look at both the hard facts and some of the falsehoods about measuring the value of electricity. Coalescing the many wide ranging and disparate value estimates, it examines how we might better quantify the significance of avenues by which electricity plays a role in sustaining and improving the quality of life - i.e., via warmth, illumination, transportation, motive power, medical diagnostics, and life-prolonging treatments. The author elucidates the numerous approaches to estimating value, including electricity's contribution toward the U.S. gross domestic product, its role in medicine, and its ability to power communications. Traditional measures such the cost of outages, the impact of storms, the cost of restoring power systems after storms, the value of lost load (VOLL), consumer willingness to pay to avoid outages, and consumer surveys are also discussed.