Abstract

This talk presents modeling approaches aimed at risk-hedging strategies in energy technology
investment decisions under socio-technical uncertainties while understanding the impact of policies
on system resilience. A catalyst for investment is the efficacy of different energy portfolios
on decarbonization in the presence of emission-reducing policies. Yet, panel data on utilities
in the U.S. underscore how the effects of competition and regulatory policy on new technology
investments depend on a firm’s existing resource stock. For instance, contrasting transaction
costs with technical capability considerations sheds light on the make-or-buy decisions in the
wind energy industry by focusing on organizational alternatives, i.e., the arrangements that
best mitigate contractual hazards, while simultaneously leveraging supply-side market capabilities.
The aim is to synthesize the options that unpack the techno-economic impacts of
investment allocation decisions. To unveil the interactions between the technologies, policies,
and economics in terms of power systems resilience, focus is then placed on the construction of
resilience-oriented networked microgrid systems in a two-stage stochastic programming model
by integrating a novel and realistic user-identified power outage scenario selection method in
the presence of emissions policies. The result validates the contributions of integrated energy
systems in resilience enhancements.

Keywords: Energy technology; Investments; Policy; Resilience; Risk and uncertainty.

Bio

Ekundayo Shittu is an Associate Professor in the Department of Engineering Management and
Systems Engineering at the George Washington University, Washington, D.C. His research focuses
on the interplay between public policy, competition and energy technology investments.
He studies the strategic interaction between firms’ technology stocks and the external environment
with the aid of mathematical programming, and through the lenses of transaction cost
economics and the resource-based view. His research has been supported by the National Science
Foundation including the early Faculty Development CAREER grant, Department of Energy,
Department of Defense, Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, Kern Family Foundation, Duke Energy Renewables,
Toyota Mobility Foundation, etc. He was a Lead Author on Chapter 2, “Integrated
Risk and Uncertainty Assessment of Climate Change Response Policies,” of Working Group III
to the 5th Assessment Report (AR5) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
He co-edited Renewable Energy: International Perspectives on Sustainability (Springer). He is a
member of INFORMS, POMS, Industry Studies and INCOSE. He holds a B.Eng. in Electrical
Engineering from the University of Ilorin, Nigeria; an M.S. in Industrial Engineering from the
American University in Cairo, Egypt; and a Ph.D. in Industrial Engineering and Operations
Research from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, U.S.

References

[1] Ilka DeLuque and Ekundayo Shittu. “Generation capacity expansion under demand, capacity
factor and environmental policy uncertainties”. In: Computers & Industrial Engineering
127 (2019), pp. 601–613.

[2] Dor Hirsh Bar Gai and Ekundayo Shittu. “Stochastic Dominance of Renewables to Replace
Hydropower Under Policy Uncertainty”. In: IEEE Access 10 (2022), pp. 45855–45869.

[3] Weijie Pan and Ekundayo Shittu. “Policies and Power Systems Resilience under Timebased
Stochastic Process of Contingencies in Networked Microgrids”. In: 2nd Round Review
(2023).

[4] Ekundayo Shittu and Carmen Weigelt. “When the Wind Blows: Incumbents’ Sourcing
Strategies for Wind Power”. In: IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management (2022).