The guy at the controls : labor quality and power plant efficiency

James B. Bushnell; Catherine Wolfram

This paper examines the impact of individual human operators on the fuel efficiency of power plants. Although electricity generation is a fuel and capital intensive enterprise, anecdotal evidence, interviews, and empirical analysis support the hypothesis that labor, particularly power plant operators, can have a non-trivial impact on the operating efficiency of the plant. We present evidence to demonstrate these effects and survey the policies and practices of electricity producing firms that either reduce or exacerbate fuel efficiency differences across individual plant operators.

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Year of publication:	2007
Authors:	Bushnell, James B. ; Wolfram, Catherine
Publisher:	Cambridge, Mass. : National Bureau of Economic Research
Subject:	Elektrizitätswirtschaft \| Electric power industry \| Kraftwerk \| Power plant \| Arbeitskräfte \| Workforce \| Qualifikation \| Occupational qualification \| Arbeitskosten \| Labour costs \| Rentabilität \| Profitability \| USA \| United States \| 2004