Electricity

BPA Won’t Pay Negative Prices to Get Wind Power Producers to Curtail

3 Comments / Electricity, Energy markets, Environmental policy / By

Michael Giberson At a December 2010 meeting, the federal Bonneville Power Agency announced that it would not pay wind power producers in its area to curtail during overgeneration events that sometimes result from the way the agency manages water flow through hydropower facilities to comply with environmental regulations. When reservoirs are full, the BPA’s dams …

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My Grid-interop Talk: Regulation’s Role in Stifling Innovation

Economics, Electricity, Regulation / By

Lynne Kiesling In early December I had the pleasure of delivering some lunch remarks at the Grid-Interop conference in Chicago. Grid-Interop is a great place for those interested in innovation in the electricity industry to share ideas about technology, business models, the interoperability that enables such creativity, and the role of economic regulation in how …

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Macroeconomic Implications of Residential Electricity Consumption

2 Comments / Economics, Electricity / By

Lynne Kiesling At Grist, Sean Casten muses on the macroeconomic implications of trends in electricity consumption. His musings focus on the established correlation between electricity consumption and economic activity, an association that he fleshed out in an earlier post. In these two posts he looks at trends in residential, commercial, and industrial electricity consumption over …

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Iran Cuts Fuel Subsidies and Other Energy and Economics Links

Economics, Electricity, Energy markets, Professional sports / By

Michael Giberson A couple of interesting readings: The New York Times reports, “Gas Prices Soar in Iran as Subsidy Reduced.” (Also: Washington Post, Wall Street Journal.) Cape Wind Project still has half of its capacity up for sale. (Local utility claims it can find cheaper renewable power elsewhere.) The Economist, “Why do firms exist?” on …

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Chinese Wind Power Company Seems to Understand American Political Capitalism

1 Comment / Electricity, Energy markets, Politics / By

Michael Giberson American University’s Investigative Journalism Workshop has published reports detailing the extensive political connections in the United States developed by Chinese wind power company A-Power Energy in its effort to build a 600-MW wind farm in West Texas.  A-Power and their partners were seeking $450 million in section 1603 grants and U.S. Department of …

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Texas Transmission Route to Avoid Crossing Scenic Canyon

9 Comments / Electricity, Energy markets, Environmental policy / By

Michael Giberson Last week the Texas PUC approved routes for the northwesternmost link in the CREZ transmission expansion, choosing one of the longest of several possible transmission routes in order to avoid crossing parts of Palo Duro canyon.  The canyon is the nation’s second longest and includes a state park.  None of the routes would …

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Designing Electricity Auctions

Electricity, Energy markets / By

From the inbox, notice of the new Utilities Policy, this a special issue on designing electricity auctions edited by Thomas P. Tangerås, drawn from a workshop in Stockholm, September 2009 hosted by the Research Institute of Industrial Economics.  Tangerås introduces the topic: What are the boundaries of the market in a system with strong requirements on centralized management of power …

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Glamour and Policy – Virginia Postrel in the Wsj

Electricity, Environmental policy, Politics, Technology / By

Michael Giberson Have you noticed images of wind turbines appearing in ads for everything from cars to banks to university programs? For many people, wind turbines have a kind of stately grace, a beauty, a high-tech glamour. In the Wall Street Journal, Virginia Postrel claimed that wind power (and high-speed rail) gets a public-policy boost from the …

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The Ercot Market in Texas Readies for Change in Market Design

Electricity, Energy markets / By

Michael Giberson The ERCOT grid is about to switch fundamental market designs from its current zonal market to a nodal market. Here is a clip from an ERCOT document describing the change:     For a more readable version, check out the full brochure, which is evailable from ERCOT’s website. ERCOT’s “Texas Nodal Market Implementation” …

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University Positions Available in Smart Grid, Power Systems, and More

2 Comments / Electricity, Energy markets, Technology / By

Michael Giberson Texas Tech University’s Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering is seeking applicants for several positions related to electric power and energy systems more generally. Most interesting to our readers may be the new Whitacre Endowed Chair in Smart Grid Technologies position and a tenure track position in power and energy systems. Excepts from the job …

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