Greenhouse gas emissions and the competitive supply costs of electricity to class customers in a widespread sparsely populated system

This paper presents a model to estimate the short run and long run costs of supplying electricity on the half hour to domestic, industrial and commercial class customers in seven distribution regions in a widespread interconnected system with a low population density, using economic efficiency criteria. The paper considers 'private' (production) costs as well as 'social' costs (including negative externalities such as greenhouse gas emissions) of electricity supply. As demonstrated in the paper, the model can be used for Monte Carlo simulations into the impact of various greenhouse scenarios and market conditions on electricity prices. The electricity supply industry in Queensland, Australia is used as a context for the modelling.