Market
Those who know of negawatts argue that creating a negawatt market would be very difficult to achieve on a large-scale, and may only have a "modest chance" of succeeding. The creator of the term negawatt, Lovins, defines the negawatt market as a way to reduce the gap between the cost of making and saving electricity.
The negawatt market can be thought of as a secondary market where electricity is allocated from areas of less use to areas of greater use. This would be a secondary market, due to the fact that it would reallocate electricity from one consumer to another within the already existing energy market. Some feel that to establish a viable market, legislation and cooperation between primary producers, distributors, traders and consumers, may be required. This proposal would encourage the market to have legislative regulations, while still allowing the market to work within itself to set prices and allocate resources. Emerging markets in carbon trading may ultimately provide a model.
A negawatt market would allow "demand side resources" to participate in wholesale energy markets. These markets are commonly referred to as a demand response. Demand response can be defined as "enrolling large users of energy in programs to lower their usage in return for compensation, which helps take pressure off the grid" This market would help take pressure off the grid because electricity could "be treated as a commodity just like copper or sowbellies," and therefore traded to areas that need it more than others. As any commodity, negawatts would have to be "tradable across time and space" to be an effective market. Being able to trade negawatts across time and space would allow for an international trading system. To create a market for negawatts, energy companies will need to put more focus toward energy efficiency. This shift in focus would require a new "business structure that will thrive in the 'negawatt market'", which has not yet been developed. Market possibilities are being implemented internationally, implying that one day an official negawatt market will become a reality.
Read more about this topic: Negawatt Power
Famous quotes containing the word market:
“The only reason to invest in the market is because you think you know something others don’t.”
—R. Foster Winans (b. 1948)
“To throw obstacles in the way of a complete education is like putting out the eyes; to deny the rights of property is like cutting off the hands. To refuse political equality is like robbing the ostracized of all self-respect, of credit in the market place, of recompense in the world of work, of a voice in choosing those who make and administer the law, a choice in the jury before whom they are tried, and in the judge who decides their punishment.”
—Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815–1902)
“Talk of a divinity in man! Look at the teamster on the highway, wending to market by day or night; does any divinity stir within him? His highest duty to fodder and water his horses! What is his destiny to him compared with the shipping interests?”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)