Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Agricultural Economics / Jeffery R. Williams / Over the last few decades there has been a shift in electricity production in the U.S. Renewable energy sources are becoming more widely used. In addition, electric generation plants that use coal inputs are more heavily regulated than a couple decades ago. This shift in electricity production was brought on by changes in federal policy – a desire for electricity produced in the U.S. which led to policies being adopted that encourage the use of renewable energy. The change in production practices due to policies may have led to changes in the productivity of electric generation plants. Multiple studies have examined the most efficient electric generation plants using the data envelopment analysis (DEA) approach. This study builds on past research to answer three questions: 1) Does the level of aggregation of fuel input variables affect the plant efficiency scores and how does the efficiency of renewable energy input compare to nonrenewable energy inputs; 2) Are policies geared toward directly or indirectly reducing greenhouse gas emissions affecting the production efficiencies of greenhouse gas emitting electric generation plants; and 3) Do renewable energy policies and the use of intermittent energy sources (i.e. wind and solar) affect the productivity growth of electric generation plants. All three analysis, presented in three essays, use U.S. plant level data obtained from the Energy Information Administration to answer these questions. The first two essays use DEA to determine the pure technical, overall technical, and scale efficiencies of electric generation plants. The third essay uses DEA within the Malmquist index to assess the change in productivity over time. Results indicate that the level of aggregation does matter particularly for scale efficiency. This implies that valuable information is likely lost when fuel inputs are aggregated together. Policies directly focused on reducing greenhouse gas emissions may improve the production efficiencies of greenhouse gas emitting electric generation plants. However, renewable energy policies do not have an effect on productivity growth. Renewable energy inputs are found to be as efficient if not more efficient than traditional energy sources.

A Teoria de Jogos tem sido amplamente utilizada para compreender e avaliar o comportamento dos agentes econômicos. Sua aplicação no estudo de leilões criou um ramo de estudos chamado Teoria de Leilões, através do trabalho pioneiro de Vickrey. Uma negociação realizada através de um leilão pode tomar diversas formas ou sistemáticas, cada qual com suas características. No Brasil, com a segunda reestruturação do setor elétrico em 2004, passou-se a utilizar este mecanismo para concessão de direitos de geração de energia elétrica, um monopólio do estado, por parte de organizações privadas. Diversos estudos abordam a eficiência de leilões, do ponto de vista da entidade organizadora, com objetivo de maximizar o bem estar para a sociedade. Este estudo visa construir um simulador numérico de leilões para avaliação de estratégias do ponto de vista do investidor. Estas estratégias estão condicionadas as características dos agentes participantes e do tipo de leilão. O trabalho adota uma perpectiva de avaliação da recente história dos leilões brasileiros a fim de identificar as estratégias possivelmente adotadas e sugere um modelo baseado na sistemática dos leilões aplicado computacionalmente a um simulador. De uma forma geral o trabalho segue o seguinte roteiro: teoria de jogos e teoria de leilões; mercado energético brasileiro de eletricidade; ferramentas financeiras para financiamento de projetos de energia; resultados dos leilões brasileiros; sistemática dos leilões; formatação do modelo. Elaboração do simulador utilizando: agentes; lógica fuzzy; função utilidade esperada e estratégias. Exercício de simulação: definição dos cenários; geração das bases de dados; execução do simulador. Para o fim a que se propõe, o simulador demonstrou refletir bem as situações encontradas na fase de pesquisa documental, propiciando boa flexibilidade para eventuais ajustes e adaptações. Foi possível utilizá-lo para testar situações limites entre ambientes de competição além de inferir questões relevantes ao investidor. A utilização de um simulador computacional tornou possível analisar numericamente situações não alcançadas somente com a teoria ou ferramentas analíticas. / Game theory has been widely used to understand and evaluate the economic agents’ behavior. Its application in auctions studies came up a study called Auction Theory, created by the pioneering job of Vickrey. A negotiation conducted through an auction, can take several ways or systematic, each one with its own characteristics. In the second restructuring process in Brazilian electricity sector, in 2004, started to use this mechanism, to granting electric power generation, a state monopoly, by private organizations. Several studies broach the efficiency of auctions, from organizer's point of view, in order to increase welfare for the society. This study aims to build an auction numerical simulator to evaluate strategies, from investor point of view (bidder). Those strategies are conditioned by auction mechanism and bidder characteristics. The job takes an assessment of recent history of Brazilian auctions, in order to identify possible adopted strategies, and suggests a model based on the auction systematic computationally applied to a Simulator. In general, the job follows those directions: game theory and auction theory; the Brazilian energy market for electricity; financial tools to finance energy projects; Brazilian auctions results; auctions’ systematic; formatting model. Working up the Simulator, using: agents, fuzzy logic; expected utility function and strategies. Exercise Simulation: environment definition; databases generation; to run the Simulator. The Simulator showed good representation from real situations for those was proposed, with flexible code to new adoptions and implementations. It was possible to run in boundaries of competition environment that show some insight to investor’s perspective. Use a computational simulator brings up a numerically way to understand some situations where just theory and analytical tools can’t reach.

abstract: Today's energy market is facing large-scale changes that will affect all market players. Near the top of that list is the rapid deployment of residential solar photovoltaic (PV) systems. Yet that growing trend will be influenced multiple competing interests between various stakeholders, namely the utility, consumers and technology provides. This study provides a series of analyses--utility-side, consumer-side, and combined analyses--to understand and evaluate the effect of increases in residential solar PV market penetration. Three urban regions have been selected as study locations--Chicago, Phoenix, Seattle--with simulated load data and solar insolation data at each locality. Various time-of-use pricing schedules are investigated, and the effect of net metering is evaluated to determine the optimal capacity of solar PV and battery storage in a typical residential home. The net residential load profile is scaled to assess system-wide technical and economic figures of merit for the utility with an emphasis on intraday load profiles, ramp rates and electricity sales with increasing solar PV penetration. The combined analysis evaluates the least-cost solar PV system for the consumer and models the associated system-wide effects on the electric grid. Utility revenue was found to drop by 1.2% for every percent PV penetration increase, net metering on a monthly or annual basis improved the cost-effectiveness of solar PV but not battery storage, the removal of net metering policy and usage of an improved the cost-effectiveness of battery storage and increases in solar PV penetration reduced the system load factor. As expected, Phoenix had the most favorable economic scenario for residential solar PV, primarily due to high solar insolation. The study location--solar insolation and load profile--was also found to affect the time of year at which the largest net negative system load was realized. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Engineering 2014

A Teoria de Jogos tem sido amplamente utilizada para compreender e avaliar o comportamento dos agentes econômicos. Sua aplicação no estudo de leilões criou um ramo de estudos chamado Teoria de Leilões, através do trabalho pioneiro de Vickrey. Uma negociação realizada através de um leilão pode tomar diversas formas ou sistemáticas, cada qual com suas características. No Brasil, com a segunda reestruturação do setor elétrico em 2004, passou-se a utilizar este mecanismo para concessão de direitos de geração de energia elétrica, um monopólio do estado, por parte de organizações privadas. Diversos estudos abordam a eficiência de leilões, do ponto de vista da entidade organizadora, com objetivo de maximizar o bem estar para a sociedade. Este estudo visa construir um simulador numérico de leilões para avaliação de estratégias do ponto de vista do investidor. Estas estratégias estão condicionadas as características dos agentes participantes e do tipo de leilão. O trabalho adota uma perpectiva de avaliação da recente história dos leilões brasileiros a fim de identificar as estratégias possivelmente adotadas e sugere um modelo baseado na sistemática dos leilões aplicado computacionalmente a um simulador. De uma forma geral o trabalho segue o seguinte roteiro: teoria de jogos e teoria de leilões; mercado energético brasileiro de eletricidade; ferramentas financeiras para financiamento de projetos de energia; resultados dos leilões brasileiros; sistemática dos leilões; formatação do modelo. Elaboração do simulador utilizando: agentes; lógica fuzzy; função utilidade esperada e estratégias. Exercício de simulação: definição dos cenários; geração das bases de dados; execução do simulador. Para o fim a que se propõe, o simulador demonstrou refletir bem as situações encontradas na fase de pesquisa documental, propiciando boa flexibilidade para eventuais ajustes e adaptações. Foi possível utilizá-lo para testar situações limites entre ambientes de competição além de inferir questões relevantes ao investidor. A utilização de um simulador computacional tornou possível analisar numericamente situações não alcançadas somente com a teoria ou ferramentas analíticas. / Game theory has been widely used to understand and evaluate the economic agents’ behavior. Its application in auctions studies came up a study called Auction Theory, created by the pioneering job of Vickrey. A negotiation conducted through an auction, can take several ways or systematic, each one with its own characteristics. In the second restructuring process in Brazilian electricity sector, in 2004, started to use this mechanism, to granting electric power generation, a state monopoly, by private organizations. Several studies broach the efficiency of auctions, from organizer's point of view, in order to increase welfare for the society. This study aims to build an auction numerical simulator to evaluate strategies, from investor point of view (bidder). Those strategies are conditioned by auction mechanism and bidder characteristics. The job takes an assessment of recent history of Brazilian auctions, in order to identify possible adopted strategies, and suggests a model based on the auction systematic computationally applied to a Simulator. In general, the job follows those directions: game theory and auction theory; the Brazilian energy market for electricity; financial tools to finance energy projects; Brazilian auctions results; auctions’ systematic; formatting model. Working up the Simulator, using: agents, fuzzy logic; expected utility function and strategies. Exercise Simulation: environment definition; databases generation; to run the Simulator. The Simulator showed good representation from real situations for those was proposed, with flexible code to new adoptions and implementations. It was possible to run in boundaries of competition environment that show some insight to investor’s perspective. Use a computational simulator brings up a numerically way to understand some situations where just theory and analytical tools can’t reach.

Orientador: Carlos Alberto dos Reis Filho / Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Faculdade de Engenharia Eletrica e de Computação / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-14T20:00:24Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Cruz_CarlosAugustodeMoraes_M.pdf: 2125247 bytes, checksum: 9593aba66491a2d9c6a4a29dce9e17f7 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2009 / Resumo: Este trabalho propõe uma nova estrutura de circuito elevador de tensão de onda completa implementável em tecnologia CMOS padrão, que tem como características relevantes uma eficiência energética maior do que estruturas similares anteriores, seu controle é efetuado por apenas duas fases de clock e também esta estrutura implementa controle de sobre-tensão no óxido de porta de seus transistores MOS, de modo que seja o mínimo possível. A estrutura proposta é apresentada em quatro diferentes versões, que têm por objetivo otimizar o funcionamento do circuito de modo a reduzir o tempo de subida de sua curva de tensão de saída, e também buscando uma estrutura livre de sobre-tensão no óxido de porta de todos os seus transistores. No desenvolvimento deste trabalho foram projetados e fabricados em tecnologia CMOS 0.35jm distintas configurações de circuitos elevadores de tensão, conhecidos na literatura como chargepumps. Os resultados obtidos tanto das simulações como das caracterizações destes circuitos permitem constatar que o trabalho realizado representa uma contribuição na área. / Abstract: This work proposes a new full wave voltage multiplier structure realizable in standard CMOS technology, which features a power efficiency that is higher than previous similar structures, its control is performed by only two clock phases, and it also performs gate-oxide voltage overstress control of its MOS transistors toward making it be as low as possible. The new structure is presented in four different versions. These distinct versions were developed aiming at to optimize the circuit operation in order to reduce the rise-time of its output voltage, and also to accomplish a structure without gate-oxide overstress in all its MOS transistors. Throughout the course of this work, distinct configurations of voltage multiplier circuits were designed and manufactured in 0.35jm CMOS technology, these circuits are known in the literature as charge pumps. The conclusion that this work represents a contribution in this field is based on the simulations and measurement results of these circuits. / Mestrado / Eletrônica, Microeletrônica e Optoeletrônica / Mestre em Engenharia Elétrica

The paper clearly shows that Russia has been diversifying its export routes during past 20 years, in order to by-pass third countries and to avoid paying additional transportation fees. The overall Russian export capacities of oil and gas are increasing, but in the same time the export volumes are stagnant. In case of oil transportation, pipelines are progressively substituted by sea transport, which enables Russia to participate on the world market. Situation with gas is different. Despite increasing export capacity Russia nowadays export almost the same amount of gas to the same locations as it did in 1990. It means that if there is any political or economical pressure it is laid against transition countries, which can be substituted, rather than against importing countries. Russian economical gains from export are following increasing oil and gas prices. To make the gains even higher, Russia initiated transition to world gas prices in the CIS countries as well as at the domestic market. To support the hypothesis of this thesis that primary goal of Russia is to increase its economical gains rather than to strengthen its political leverage, it is important to mention that majority of energy disputes of past twenty years were ignited by quarrel over prices and were settled by trade agreement. The...

Blockchain-based peer-to-peer (P2P) electricity markets received considerable attention in the past years, leading to a rich variety of proposed market designs. Yet, little comparability and consensus exists on optimal market design, also due to a lack of common evaluation and benchmarking infrastructure. This article describes LabChain, an interactive prototype as research infrastructure for conducting experiments in (simulated) P2P electricity markets involving real human actors. The software stack comprises: (i) an (open) data layer for experiment configuration, (ii) a blockchain layer to reliably document bids and transactions, (iii) an experiment coordination layer and (iv) a user interface layer for participant interactions. As evaluation environment for human interactions within a laboratory setting, researchers can investigate patterns based on energy system and market setup and can compare and evaluate designs under real human behavior allowing alignment of intentions and outcomes. This contributes to the evaluation and benchmarking infrastructure discourse.

This dissertation employ applied microeconomics techniques with a specific emphasis on behavioral dynamics within the realms of energy and environmental economics. In Chapter one, we investigates the impact of outdoor temperature on productivity in the service sector, using data from the India Human Development Survey. Our findings suggest a precisely estimated zero effect on interview duration, ruling out significant productivity impacts. In Chapter two, we employs a conditional demand analysis on a Canadian electricity consumer data set, highlighting the effectiveness of local heat pumps and thermostat setbacks for electricity savings. Results also reveal trends favoring newer homes in electricity consumption decline. In Chapter three, I study the causal relationship of spatial peer effects from Canada's largest home energy efficiency retrofit program on energy consumption. My results show that close neighbors to energy efficiency retrofitted homes experience a significant reduction in monthly natural gas and electricity consumption. Moreover, visible retrofits, such as windows and doors, significantly impact peer energy savings compared to less visible retrofits.

<p>1st essay abstract:   </p> <p>This study investigates the economic rents of the wind energy industry in the U.S. and their economic impacts on local economies, using Benton and White counties in Indiana as study regions. By calibrating a partial equilibrium model using 2007-2010 data of the industry, we find a resource rent of $9.72/MWh. We then use a general equilibrium model with Dutch Disease features to study the optimal tax levied on this rent, and the economic impacts of redistributing the tax revenues back to the county residents. An exhaustive rent tax increases real county personal income by as high as 9.1% and as low as 2%, depending on the county’s features. Applying an incentive compatible resource rent tax rate and redistributing the revenues to the county’s laborers leads to an increase of 3.5% and 16% in their income in White and Benton counties, respectively. We also perform robustness checks by allowing labor mobility between counties to examine the impacts of resource rents on the county economy under endogenous labor growth. </p> <p>1st essay data: All data acquired comes from the U.S. Census Bureau, county Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory reports, the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, Indeed.com, news articles, and wind developers websites.</p> <p><br></p> <p>2nd essay abstract:   </p> <p>Using the Regional Energy Deployment System (ReEDS) model, we estimate the deadweight loss imposed by county-level wind power development restrictions in the form of increased electricity costs due to suboptimal siting. This is accomplished by optimizing the power system of the United States' Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO) from 2020 to 2050. We perform the optimization with and without land-use constraints arising from simulated potential local ordinances restricting wind power development, and under multiple scenarios reflecting different renewable portfolio standards (RPS). We find that local restrictions on wind power increase the total system cost by 0.15%-0.3% and the wholesale electricity price by 1.8%-2.7%, depending on the RPS scenario. Changes in the generation and installed capacity mixes are more substantial and depend on both the level of county restrictions on wind power, and RPS requirements, thus indicating an interaction between RPS requirements and local wind power restrictions. We also find that plausible restrictions on wind development do not pose major barriers to meeting renewable energy targets in a cost-effective manner.</p> <p>2nd essay data: All data is embedded inside the Regional Energy Deployment System (ReEDS) model of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.</p> <p><br></p> <p>3rd essay abstract:   </p> <p>The USDA promotes adoption of conservation practices beneficial for soil health and environment through agricultural cost-share payment programs such as EQIP or CSP. Although the efficiency of these programs has been evaluated through additionality estimates, which represent the percentage of farmers who would adopt a practice only with payments, the potential complementarities between certain combinations of practices have often been overlooked. Unaccounted for, these complementarities may impact additionality estimates. This paper provides a thorough investigation of additionality estimates of common practices, including no-till, nutrient management and cover crops, accounting for potential complementarities between them. We find no significant differences between traditional additionality estimates and estimates accounted for potential complementarities between the three practices. The results thus indicate that despite agronomic evidence of synergies in co-adopting these three practices, we find no solid indication of adoption complementarity between them in reality. </p> <p>3rd essay data: Data is acquired from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and Esri maps.</p>

The goal of this study is to determine the economic implications of incorporating intermittent renewable energy into current power systems. The study also considers how to achieve an optimal mix of generating assets with renewable power, as well as the costs and advantages of using renewable energy sources to reduce CO2 emissions. Furthermore, this study examines how renewable energy exacerbates the "missing money" problem, which is a critical problem in electricity market design. The last part of this research is devoted to the calibration of the hybrid electricity grid model. We adopt positive mathematical programming (PMP) to calibrate the quadratic cost function for fossil fuel power plants. The calibrated model enables us to better analyze the impact of renewable energy on the electricity market. We find that due to the intermittency of wind and solar power, renewable energy could replace part of the peak load capacity like gas turbines but is not able to replace most of the base load capacity like coal capacities. The unintended consequences are that to eliminate the coal base load capacity, other forms of baseload capacities such as nuclear or hydropower capacity are necessary to incorporate the intermittent renewable power. Moreover, the capacity factors of remained peak load capacities and newly built base load capacities declined. Further support policies for maintaining the capacity adequacy standard are necessary for a reliable hybrid electricity market. / Graduate / 2023-09-26