Technology Policy

While a carbon cap-and-trade system (or tax) may be necessary to provide the right price signal to develop low-carbon emission technologies, it may not be sufficient to develop those technologies within the window of opportunity to stabilize CO2 concentrations at an acceptable level. Barriers stand in the way of the development and deployment of these technologies, preventing technology innovators and implementers from freely responding to the carbon price signal.

Sources of significant renewable energy are often located far from loads, where transmission capacity is insufficient or nonexistent. Siting and permitting of new transmission lines is a slow, costly and contentious undertaking. Renewables also have higher intermittency. In an industry where considerable long-term capital investments have been made to reliably deliver peak demand, intermittent renewables are at a considerable disadvantage. To make a higher penetration of renewables possible, loads must be managed to more closely track supply and the nation’s transmission and storage infrastructure must be optimized around a more diverse set of generation sources. We are conducting research and analyses in renewable siting, transmission infrastructure, and demand side management. In a series of logical stages, we intend to develop a model to evaluate the optimal mix of generation sources, transmission and additional infrastructure which minimize emissions and cost while meeting reliability requirements.

Work in Progress:

• Wind siting study to optimize the location of wind power generation for a specific load given the tradeoff between wind strength and new transmission line cost.
• Evaluation of different options for dealing with the increased intermittency. Comparing the costs and emissions associated with 1) using smart grid technologies to shift peak demand, 2) using energy storage to better match supply to demand and 3) using fossil fuel peaking.