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December 17, 2024

Economics of Grid Defection II

Last week I wrote about the grid defection discussion circa 2014, motivated by Elisa Wood’s webinar with Seyyed Ali Sadat and Joshua Pearce of Western Ontario University on their new paper in Solar Energy. Let’s pick up the story from 2014 and discuss the research leading up to their paper. Evolution of the Research In the ensuing…

December 12, 2024

Economics of Grid Defection I

Yesterday Elisa Wood hosted a webinar with Seyyed Ali Sadat and Joshua Pearce of Western Ontario University, who have a new paper: The threat of economic grid defection in the US with solar photovoltaic, battery and generator hybrid systems(Solar Energy, November 2024). Grid defection occurs when electricity customers generate and store enough power locally to become fully self-sufficient…

November 7, 2024

History of Technology: Cheaper, Cleaner, Easier

Every fall since 2020 I have been teaching energy economics in Northwestern University’s Master of Science in Energy and Sustainability (MSES) program. I team teach with my friend Mark Witte, and my part of the course is backloaded—natural monopoly theory and regulation in theory and in history, new generation technology invention and adoption, wholesale power markets, digitalization…