Essays in Energy and Environmental Economics

Abstract

This dissertation presents three essays at the intersection of energy and environmental economics, focusing on how the energy transition reshapes prices, incentives, and behavior in electricity and transportation systems. The first essay examines how the expansion of wind and solar affects wholesale electricity prices, strategic behavior, and generator profitability in Alberta's restructured electricity market. Using a cost-based competitive benchmark, I decompose the total price effect of renewable generation into a cost channel and a strategic markup channel. The results show that wind reduces both costs and markups throughout the day, while solar reduces prices, costs, and markups during midday generation hours. Medium-run estimates, which additionally exploit cross-year variation in capacity accumulation, show that solar raises prices and markups during morning and evening ramp periods. Counterfactual capacity scenarios indicate that continued renewable expansion shifts value from energy generation toward flexibility, raising questions about investment adequacy in energy-only market designs. The second essay estimates the short-run cross-price elasticity of electric vehicle (EV) usage with respect to gasoline prices using high-frequency driving and charging data from more than 5,000 Tesla EVs across 14 U.S. metropolitan areas. The analysis shows that higher gasoline prices increase EV driving and charging, with larger responses in areas with greater access to public charging infrastructure, especially DC fast chargers. The results are consistent with within-household substitution in multi-vehicle households and suggest that fuel-price policies can increase EV usage, with charging infrastructure playing a complementary role. The third essay provides a granular descriptive analysis of EV charging and driving behavior using vehicle-level telemetry from nearly 8,000 EVs. Vehicles travel an average of 16,392 km annually, exceeding prior estimates that raised concerns about EV underutilization. Charging behavior follows a "top-up" rather than "fill-up" pattern, with most energy delivered at home during evening and overnight hours. Owners enrolled in time-of-use electricity rate plans show a pronounced concentration of charging around midnight. The findings highlight the importance of rate design, managed charging, and charging access in shaping future EV load growth.