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4/6/2009
Brattle Consultants Author Two Articles Published in The Electricity Journal
Consultants at The Brattle Group have authored two separate articles published in the April 2009 issue of The Electricity Journal.
The first article, “How Green is the Smart Grid?” was authored by Ryan Hledik, an associate in Brattle’s San Francisco office. The article quantifies the environmental benefits of a national smart grid strategy, using a simulation of the U.S. power system.
The environmental benefits were assessed under two illustrative scenarios: a conservative scenario, including only those technologies that are commercially available; and an expanded scenario to account for future smart grid technologies. Under the conservative scenario, annual power sector CO2 emissions are reduced by five percent by 2030, relative to a baseline projection that does not include smart grid impacts. The average annual growth rate in power sector 2 emissions drops from 0.7 percent to 0.5 percent over this time period.
According to the study, the expanded scenario produces even further reductions. Power sector CO2emissions in 2030 drop by nearly 16 percent and the average annual change in CO2 emissions becomes a decrease of 0.1 percent per year. By 2030, this annual CO2 reduction is roughly equivalent to taking over 90 million cars off the road in that year, or shutting off nearly 130 coal power plants.
The second article, “The Power of Dynamic Pricing,” was authored by Brattle principal Ahmad Faruqui, associate Ryan Hledik, and senior research associate John Tsoukalis. The article uses data from a generic California utility to show that it is feasible to develop dynamic pricing rates for all customer classes. These rates have the potential to reduce system peak demands from 1 to 9 percent.
According to the article, existing rate designs hide the temporal variation in the cost of electricity and thereby promote over-consumption of electricity during peak times and under-consumption during off-peak times. Dynamic pricing rate designs can remedy this problem and enhance economic efficiency.
For more information please contact Laura Waters Burns at Laura.Burns@brattle.com or call +1.617.864.7900.
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