The great demand-side bidding debate rages on

✍ Scribed by Amory B. Lovins

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 1989
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 539 KB
• Volume: 2
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1040-6190
• DOI: 10.1016/s1040-6190(89)80010-7

✦ Synopsis

The following lively critiques were recently sent by Amon) Lovins and Eric Hirst, respectively, to Clzarl/?$ Cicchetti and Bill Hogan at Harvard's Energy & Environmental Policy Center. Cicchetti and Hogan are authors ofa novel and widely /10ted

paper suggesting a new approac11 to dmtand-side bidding. T/leir proposal is, ill essence, tlrat when a uti/ill) pays a custOnlN" all illcentive to save electricity, that CIlstomer should have to repay to the utility the revenue the utility loses as II result of the salling. Lovins and Hirst argue, each quite independently of the otller, tlrat this is a bad idea and, far from preventing possible overirn>estment in end-use efficiency, will perpetuate present underirwestment. At our request, Lovins and Hirst have slightly revised tlleir letters to expand documentation, clarify afew shorthand passages. and define certain ternlS for readers not immersed in tire dcmalldside-bidding debate--an importallt and continuing dialogue in which these commelltaries usefully focus some key concepts at issue.