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In a recent article by Sarah Tory, Professor Frank Wolak states that in the near term consumers should not expect a rise in electricity bills. This fear of soaring electricity costs comes from the decreased generation of Hoover Dam due to the low water levels of Lake Mead. However, Professor Wolak says that utilities frequently buy "future" contracts, which limits their ability to raise prices. Professor Wolak also states that, because of the mix of renewable resources in the West, other energy sources may help to alleviate the strain on the system from the loss of hydropower.

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Stanford students, under the guidance of the Stanford Program on Energy and Sustainable Development and in partnership with the Freeman Spogli Institute and the Universidad Popular Autónoma del Estado de Puebla (UPAEP), are currently administering surveys throughout Puebla, Mexico. The surveys primarily consist of three stages: determining a household's energy consumption, educating the household on how their electricity bill is calculated, and suggesting at least one cost-saving strategy the household could adopt. The research project is a continuation of the work that the students began in Econ 121: Social Science Field Research Methods and Applications, taught by Ognen Stojanovski, Frank Wolak, and Mark Thurber. The trip to Mexico will last for four weeks. 

You can follow the experiences of the students at their blog

In addition, the students have been posting pictures from their trip on the FSI Instagram

Link to Econ 121

Link to the FSI Student Programs Facebook Page

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Frank Wolak
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The Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) awarded $100 thousand to fund PESD's research project on "Transmission Planning to Support Renewable Energy at Scale and Enhance Wholesale Electricity Competition."

At present, the lack of adequate transmission infrastructure makes it difficult to connect generators in regions with rich wind or solar potential to major population centers, thus a major barrier to least-cost renewable energy deployment.  The current transmission planning and expansion processes, incentives for vertically integrated, regulated monopoly regimes versus wholesale market regimes for renewable energy, ambitious state-level renewable energy goals, and the geographic concentration of the major renewable energy sources obstruct the ability for low cost renewable energy for consumers, healthy competition, least cost transmission, and the expansion of renewable energy generation.

A major goal of this research project is to quantify the differences in the least cost transmission network configuration between the vertically-integrated regime and wholesale market regime and quantify the differences in the cost of serving load associated with using a transmission planning and expansion process not suited to the wholesale market regime. 

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The TomKat Center for Sustainable Energy has awarded four research grants totaling $1.2 million to Stanford University researchers for smart power grid related studies.  One of the four grants went to a PESD-led project that will help regulators overcome barriers to the development of electricity transmission lines needed to facilitate renewable energy deployment.  At present, the lack of adequate transmission infrastructure makes it difficult to connect generators in regions with rich wind or solar potential to major population centers.

One of the biggest challenges in the current transmission planning process is accurately characterizing the benefits of transmission lines to build a case for their development.  "Our research will develop key analytical tools to help regulators and policymakers assess the economic and environmental benefits of transmission expansions to support renewable generation," Wolak said. Such tools can ultimately be built in to grid planning, expansion, and pricing methodologies.

 

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California is like many states whose electricity customers are still protected by real-time price risk through fixed retail price.  This fixed retail price, however, restricts the consumer's ability to save money by reducing consumption during peak hours. 

Those queasy about allowing or subjecting customers' to dynamic pricing are up for a fight; major technological barriers to dynamic pricing will soon be eliminated as all three of California's IOUs will have interval meters.  The Home Area Network segment of the Smart Grid Ecosystem Broadband Plan includes some strong words for State PUCs, urging them to in turn push utilities to deliver real time pricing data to consumers.  What remains to be seem is: What set of pricing plans would satisfy both HAN vendors and the PUCs?

Panel discussion topics:

  • Is some dynamic pricing available?
  • What will the plans look like?
  • Research questions
  • What set of pricing plans would satisfy both HAN vendors and the PUCs?

Westin Hotel
Palo Alto, CA

Stanford University
Economics Department
579 Jane Stanford Way
Stanford, CA 94305-6072

(650) 724-1712 (650) 724-1717
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Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Holbrook Working Professor of Commodity Price Studies in Economics
Senior Fellow, by courtesy, at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research
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MS, PhD

Frank A. Wolak is a Professor in the Department of Economics at Stanford University. His fields of specialization are Industrial Organization and Econometric Theory. His recent work studies methods for introducing competition into infrastructure industries -- telecommunications, electricity, water delivery and postal delivery services -- and on assessing the impacts of these competition policies on consumer and producer welfare. He is the Chairman of the Market Surveillance Committee of the California Independent System Operator for electricity supply industry in California. He is a visiting scholar at University of California Energy Institute and a Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER).

Professor Wolak received his Ph.D. and M.S. from Harvard University and his B.A. from Rice University.

Director of the Program on Energy and Sustainable Development
Frank Wolak Keynote Speaker
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A preliminary list of regulatory barriers that restrain the commercialization of technologies that would reduce the carbon content of energy services consumed in the United States.

At the request of the Kauffman Foundation, PESD director Frank Wolak compiled a list of state and local regulatory barriers that restrain the commercialization of technologies that would reduce the carbon content of energy services consumed in the United States.

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Program on Energy and Sustainable Development
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Frank Wolak
Frank Wolak
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PESD researchers Richard K. Morse and Gang He are in Copenhagen attending international climate negotiations at the UN's COP 15.  Key issues in PESD's research platform are prominently featured in the event: carbon capture and storage, reform of the clean development mechanism (CDM), Chinese energy markets, carbon markets,  the future of coal and gas and global emissions, the smart grid, and a host of other topics central to the future of the global energy system.  Richard and Gang are testing their latest research with some of the world's key decision markers on energy and climate and sharing Stanford and PESD insights in this global forum.

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The traditional approach to demand response of paying for a customer's electricity consumption reductions relative to an administratively set baseline is currently being advocated by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) as a way to foster the participation of final consumers in formal wholesale markets. Although these efforts may lead to greater participation of final consumers in traditional demand response programs, they are likely to work against the ultimate goal of increasing the benefits that electricity consumers realize from formal wholesale electricity markets, because traditional demand response programs are likely to provide a less reliable product than generation resources. The moral hazard and adverse selection problems that reduce the reliability of the product provided by traditional demand response resources can be addressed by treating consumers and producers of electricity symmetrically in the wholesale market. Several suggestions are made for how this would be accomplished in both the energy and ancillary services markets. A specific application of this general approach to the California wholesale electricity market is also provided.

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The Electricity Journal
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James Bushnell
Benjamin F. Hobbs
Frank Wolak
Frank Wolak

Workshop Focus

With around 2 billion people using biomass as their primary energy source, and 1.6 billion people without access to electricity, there are many unanswered questions on how to best provide energy services to low-income people in developing countries. This workshop will explore three aspects of the challenge of providing energy to low income communities: business models for cookstove implementations, the structure of rural biomass markets, and household energy choices. The event will be an opportunity for experts to share their latest research and for PESD to share its planned research and receive feedback.

Richard and Rhoda Goldman Conference Room

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