Please join us for an E-IPER dissertation defense by Alison Ong, who will present "Regulation, Voluntary Action, or Markets? Mechanisms for Advancing the Energy Transition."

In-person: Y2E2 299

Virtual: Zoom webinar

ABSTRACT:

Achieving a sustainable energy sector depends on decarbonizing the electricity grid, but expanding the use of renewable energy raises a variety of technical, economic, and political challenges. My work assesses how regulatory instruments compare to non-regulatory mechanisms in overcoming these challenges.

 
The first part of the thesis (Chapters 1–3) encompasses my research on voluntary renewable procurement and renewable portfolio standard (RPS) mandates. Chapter 1 examines the contributions of California’s Community Choice Aggregators (CCAs), publicly-owned retail providers who tend to procure high levels of renewable power. I show that CCAs have been effective in matching voluntary green power to communities with high willingness-to-pay for renewables, but potential benefits have been undermined by CCAs’ indirect effects on incumbent providers. Chapter 2 focuses on how fractured governance reduces regulatory efficacy. I find that dividing responsibility for RPS enforcement across multiple state agencies, as well as fluid definitions around renewable energy compliance, ultimately result in leaky regulation. Chapter 3 generalizes my California-based work to a national scale, comparing RPS rules and voluntary green markets more broadly in order to accurately assess net decarbonization progress across the US. Chapter 4 turns attention to issues of ancillary services (AS) for grid reliability in the face of a rapid transition to renewable resources. Using Australia’s National Electricity Market as my empirical setting, I study the costs of implementing a blanket mandate for generators to provide an AS product against the benefits of a market-based design. 

Even if there is general consensus around the goal of a decarbonized grid, my thesis emphasizes that there are many ways to get there. Policy instrument choices will depend on the institutional, political, economic, and operational realities of the grid in question. Only by examining mechanisms through this interdisciplinary lens can we gain a realistic assessment of each approach’s benefits and make prudent decisions about an optimal path forward.