Projecting Spatial E85 Demand for 2015 and 2020
Growth in the sales of biofuels in the United States (US) requires a change in the biofuels market from predominantly blending of ethanol in gasoline as the E10 market saturates and total gasoline demand declines in the coming years. E85 is a currently available biofuel, and can act as a substitute for gasoline for owners of flexible fuel vehicles (FFV). This paper focuses on forecasting future E85 demand spatially across the US, accounting for both the consumer’s choice to purchase E85 and the retailers’ choice to offer E85. The E85 demand in each county is modeled as a function of projected local vehicle miles traveled (VMT) and FFV owners’ choice between E85 and gasoline. The authors modeled the consumers’ choice of private cars and fleet cars separately since fleet cars are subjected to special regulatory and incentivized programs. We modeled the local retailers’ choice by maximizing their profit assuming perfect information is available. The result of the analysis forecasts the demand curves at terminal level for different oil price scenarios. The authors predict that in 2015 the requirement stated in renewable fuel standard (RFS) would be met by E10 and E85 if the approximate terminal price is $2/gallon of E85 in 2010 dollars for reference oil price scenario, $3.4/gallon for high oil price scenario and $0.5/gallon for low oil price. However, in 2020 the RFS cannot be met with E10 and E85 unless additional FFV production or purchase policies are put in place.
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Supplemental Notes:
- This paper was sponsored by TRB committee ADC70 Transportation Energy.
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Corporate Authors:
500 Fifth Street, NW
Washington, DC United States 20001 -
Authors:
- Pei, Yu
- Parker, Nathan
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Conference:
- Transportation Research Board 93rd Annual Meeting
- Location: Washington DC
- Date: 2014-1-12 to 2014-1-16
- Date: 2014
Language
- English
Media Info
- Media Type: Digital/other
- Features: Figures; References; Tables;
- Pagination: 9p
- Monograph Title: TRB 93rd Annual Meeting Compendium of Papers
Subject/Index Terms
- TRT Terms: Alternate fuels; Biomass fuels; Consumer preferences; Demand; Ethanol; Renewable energy sources; Vehicle miles of travel
- Uncontrolled Terms: Flexible fuel vehicles
- Geographic Terms: United States
- Subject Areas: Energy; Highways; Vehicles and Equipment; I96: Vehicle Operating Costs;
Filing Info
- Accession Number: 01506348
- Record Type: Publication
- Report/Paper Numbers: 14-4432
- Files: TRIS, TRB, ATRI
- Created Date: Feb 3 2014 9:17AM