Research Of Step Electric Tariff Strategy Based On Demand-side Analysis

Electric power industry, which supports the development of economics and society, is facing the challenges from global energy crisis and environmental degradation. Hence, there is no delay in energy saving and emission reduction. In electric power industry, the most important parts of energy saving and emission reduction are generation side and demand side. For generation side, improving energy efficiency and developing clean energy power are two major parts. While for demand side,demand-side management (DSM) is the only measure. Many researches and applications, at home and abroad, prove that DSM is very effective in energy saving and emission reduction.Demand-side response (DR) is the further research of DSM on electric power market and electricity sales price. One of the important issues, which is defined ?price-based demand-side response?, studies how electricity users adjust their electricity demand according to the changes of electricity sales price. Currently, there are a lot of researches on Time-of-use tariff (TOU), Real-time pricing (RTP), step electric tariff, etc.Step electric tariff was formed in the U.S. in 1970s. Aiming at providing energy life-line for low-income groups and encouraging electricity saving, several states in U.S and many countries in Europe and Asia had used step electric tariff for years. In China, the government proposed ?step electric tariff? in the Outline of China?s Eleventh Five-year Plan for the first time, and then made the experimental implement in Zhejiang, Fujian and Sichuan province in 2004 to 2006. In 2010, National Development and Reform Commission published the ?Step Electric Tariff Reform Program (draft)?. The draft received 61% support and 21794 feedbacks in the whole nation, which imply there were many problems should to be solved.Currently, China?s electricity market is still under establishing and the electricity price system is still not perfect. Hence, step electric tariff, as a transitional price, has important means to our country?s energy saving and emission reduction and the next step new electricity price reform, and also can guide electricity users reasonable electricity power consumption.This paper discussed three issues of step electric tariff,①electricity consumption level of each step,②electricity sales price level of each step,③resources optimization value. This paper also gave several examples analyses with the data of several province and Zhongshang City.