An interesting story from NPR caught my eye: how ride sharing apps make it easier for riders to overcome racial discrimination. The story tells the tale of Skinny Pants Guy, “a dude who was in his mid-20s — slim, with neat, shoulder-length locks, skinny chinos, loafers and a leather briefcase slung across his torso — …
A few weeks ago I mused over the question of whether there would ever be an Uber or AirBnB for the electricity grid. This question is a platform question — both Uber and AirBnB have business models in which they bring together two parties for mutual benefit, and the platform provider’s revenue stream can come …
Platform Economics and “Unscaling” the Electricity Industry Read More »
I’ve been playing around with some ownership type and fuel source data on electricity generation, using the EIA’s annual data going back to 1990. I looked at solar’s share of the total MWH of generated electricity in eight states (AZ CA IL NC NJ NY OH TX), 1990-2012, and express it as a percentage of …
For the firms in regulated industries, for the regulators, for their customers, does the theory underlying the applied regulation matter? I think it matters a lot, even down in the real-world trenches of doing regulation, because regulation’s theoretical foundation influences what regulators and firms do and how they do it. Think about a traditional regulated …
Why Does a Theory of Competition Matter for Electricity Regulation? Read More »
Since 2008, multiple smart grid pilot projects have been occurring in the US, funded jointly through regulated utility investments and taxpayer-funded Department of Energy cost sharing. In this bureaucratic market environment, market experimentation takes the form of the large-scale, multi-year pilot project. The regulated utility (after approval from the state public utility commission) publishes a …
In a recent essay, the Rocky Mountain Institute’s Matthew Crosby asks “will there ever be an AirBnB or Uber for the electricity grid?” It’s a good question, a complicated question, and one that I have pondered myself a few times. He correctly identifies the characteristics of such platforms that have made them attractive and successful, …
The Sharing Economy and the Electricity Industry Read More »
Modern life is full of bustle and inattention, with too many activities and tasks and opportunities competing for our limited cognitive bandwidth. Even in the relatively staid academic life this is true; my regular teaching requirements and other campus commitments have meant that my mind is stretched, particularly over the past few years as some …
I recently argued that the regulated utility is not likely to enter a “death spiral”, but that the regulated utility business model is indeed under pressure, and the conversation about the future of that business model is a valuable one. One area of pressure on the regulated utility business model is the market for residential …
Should Regulated Utilities Participate in the Residential Solar Market? Read More »
For the past three years, I’ve team-taught a class that’s part of our Institute for Energy and Sustainability at Northwestern (ISEN) curriculum. It’s an introductory class, primarily focused on ethics and philosophy. One of my earth science colleagues kicks us off with the carbon cycle, the evidence for anthropogenic global warming, and interpretations of that …
The conversations about the “utility death spiral” to which I alluded in my recent post have included discussion of the potential for “grid defection”. Grid defection is an important phenomenon in any network industry — what if you use scarce resources to build a network that provides value for consumers, and then over time, with …
“Grid Defection” and the Regulated Utility Business Model Read More »
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