Resources - Energy Economics

Energy market, finance, and business issues

Jeff Alwang, professor of agricultural and applied economics, co-authored a study on the increased use of renewable energy resources in Virginia. The study was conducted by the Virginia Center for Coal and Energy Research for the Virginia Commission on Electrical Utility Restructuring. The study analyzed the economics of alternative renewable-energy sources in Virginia, including wind, solar, and biofuels. Alwang’s research examines linkages of each energy source with local economies to understand how increased renewable production impacts employment, incomes, and tax revenues in nearby localities.

Ralph Badinelli, professor of business Information technology, is modeling competitive frameworks and energy markets. The best way to encourage the use of distributed generation technologies is to show that they are economically viable. Dr. Badinelli is developing business models by building a computer simulation software package. The Virginia Tech Electricity Grid and Market Simulator will be a robust tool for educational case studies in the field of power systems design, engineering, and management. The tool will support various decision-making domains, including: • Public policy decision problems – balancing environmental guidelines, market regulation, and infrastructure planning • Engineering decision problems – protecting the design of the system, selecting transmission and generation technology • Business decision problems – generation capacity planning, unit commitment, optimal dispatch, demand side response, trading strategy, financial risk management For each of these decision problems, key performance indicators, such as long-range cost, reliability, pollution, market equity, and financial risk, must be analyzed. Badinelli is part of the interdisciplinary Virginia Tech Consortium on Energy Restructuring, led by Richard Hirsh, professor of Science and Technology Studies, that has National Science Foundation support to “Design a secure and efficient distributed generation power system.”

Daniel Breslau, associate professor of science and technology in society, studies the economics and politics of power market design. For example, he traces the process by which wholesale electricity markets in the United States were constructed, with particular attention to the interaction of political interests and economic knowledge.

JoAnn Emmel, associate professor of apparel, housing, and resource management, is a member of the Consortium for Energy Restructuring National Science Foundation project. She incorporates consumer energy understanding and use issues in several undergraduate courses in housing. Her research focuses on appliance information needs of consumers and consumers’ appliance usage patterns; energy usage, conservation practices, and the impact of energy cost among moderate- to low-income families; and consumer perceptions of distributed generation. Emmel works closely with the Center for Real Life Kitchen Design programs, which also incorporate energy use. She is also a member of the Campus Energy Committee.

George Hagerman, a senior research associate at Virginia Tech's Advanced Research Institute (VT – ARI) in Northern Virginia, conducted a preliminary assessment of the economic development potential to Virginia's maritime industry of offshore wind energy development on Virginia's outer continental shelf. Based on the positive findings of this study, the 2006 General Assembly created the Virginia Coastal Energy Research Consortium in the Virginia Energy Plan (SB262), which includes VT-ARI in partnership with Old Dominion University, the Virginia Institute of Marine Science, Norfolk State University, and James Madison University.

Michael Karmis, Stonie Barker Professor of Mining and Minerals Engineering and director of the Virginia Center for Coal and Energy Research (VCCER – www.energy.vt.edu), studies economic development in Southwest Virginia. He encourages the involvement of stakeholders in proposals with the potential for significant economic development in the traditional coal-producing counties of Virginia. The work is funded by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) through the Southern States Energy Board's Southeastern Carbon Sequestration Regional Partnership, Southern States Energy Board, and National Energy Technology Laboratory, and energy production and industrial corporations in Virginia. He also published "A Study of Increased Use of Renewable Energy Resources in Virginia." The study was supported by the Virginia Commission Electric Utility Restructuring, National Renewable Technology Laboratory, and other departments at Virginia Tech.

Ted Koebel, program chair and professor of urban and regional planning, counts innovation and diffusion of affordable housing technology among his specialization areas. Between 2003 and 2005, he worked on "Residential Energy Assistance Challenge: Evaluation of Virginia Weatherization Program," as principal investigator with John Randolph, for the Virginia Department of Housing and Community Development.

Irene Leech, associate professor of apparel, housing, and resource management, is a volunteer consumer advocate in the Virginia legislature and at the State Corporation Commission. As a member of the Consortium on Energy Restructuring at Virginia Tech, she studies consumer impact of market design and regulation.

Achla Marathe and colleagues at the Network Dynamics and Simulation Science Laboratory (NDSSL) at Virginia Bioinformatics Institute (VBI) are developing modeling tools to study energy markets. The team at Network Dynamics and Simulation Science Laboratory has been engaged in energy research for the past 10 years. The research includes a wide spectrum of energy-related topics, such as market power, renewable energy, market efficiency, impact of network topology on the markets, network economics, and price volatility.
        Achla Marathe is the lead economist at the Network Dynamics and Simulation Science Laboratory (NDSSL) of the Virginia Bioinformatics Institute (VBI) and an associate professor in the Department of Agriculture and Applied Economics. Her research includes a wide spectrum of energy related topics such as market power, renewable energy, market efficiency, impact of network topology on the markets and infrastructure vulnerability. She and other team members at NDSSL have developed an agent-based, microscopic, end-to-end modeling framework for representing and analyzing a wide array of energy markets. She uses analytical tools, economic analysis, and agent-based simulation modeling methods for the energy research.
            Jiangzhuo Chen, postdoctoral research associate at NDSSL, is working on electricity markets, topological market power, and structure-based vulnerability analysis of various infrastructure networks, including power grids. His research focuses on issues related to network topology, markets clearing mechanisms in the presence of physical constraints, and mitigation of locational market power. He has also been working on energy efficient routing of the wireless networks.
            Karla Atkins, senior research associate at NDSSL, has participated in development of highly scalable, agent-based microscopic simulations that integrate energy market models with power flow models. A unique feature of this research is the incorporation of realistic, time-varying demand modeling for electricity based on activities, location, and demographics of individuals. She has also developed tools for structural analysis of power grids and has performed analyses that contribute to developing an understanding of the complex interaction between energy market behaviors and physical clearing of electricity on a power grid.
            Madhav Marathe, professor of computer science and deputy director of NDSSL, has published more than 150 research articles in peer reviewed journals, conference proceedings, and books, and has over eight years of experience in project leadership and technology development, specializing in population dynamics, energy markets and infrastructure, telecommunication systems, epidemiology, design and analysis of algorithms, design of services-oriented architectures, and socio-technical systems.

Joachim Schleich, adjunct professor of agricultural and applied economics, is studying the design of environmental policy instruments (in particular, the CO2 emissions-trading system in the European Union), the innovation and the diffusion of environmentally friendly technologies, and the political economy of environmental and trade policies. He works at the Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research (www.isi.fhg.de/) in Karlsruhe, Germany, as a senior researcher and project manager. Schleich regularly visits Virginia Tech for joint research projects and to serve on graduate students’ committees.

Fred Shokes, director of the Tidewater Agricultural Research and Extension Center (AREC), and David Starner, superintendent at the Northern Piedmont AREC, teach agricultural producers the fundamentals of biodiesel, specifically about oilseed crops and markets. In Virginia, soybean is the leading candidate for use as biodiesel feedstocks, with more than 500,000 acres of production. Research has shown that canola is another crop wtih good potential since it can be grown in Virginia and produces more oil on a per-acre basis. Compared to soybean, canola has a lower content of saturated fatty acids, resulting in a lower cloud point and better cold-weather performance, and a lower iodine value, resulting in greater biodiesel stability. If processed into swine and poultry feed, the glycerin byproduct can be valuable and constitutes about one-tenth of the bioprocessing output.

Kwa Sur Tam, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering, researches the application of advanced technologies to enhance performance and reliability of electric power systems. He also studies electricity usage patterns and has developed a system to aggregate residential and small commercial power customers to form buying blocks to negotiate better terms.

Paul Winistorfer, department head and professor of wood science and forest products, prepared a report analyzing energy used in the manufacture and use of wood building systems and energy consumption in residential dwellings. Phase I of a large energy project, the research results appear in Wood and Fiber Science Journal and at The Consortium for Research on Renewable Industrial Materials, in which Virginia Tech participates with the University of Washington, received funding for this project from the U.S. Department of Energy, USDA, and others. The research broadly establishes an environmental footprint for the renewal of industrial materials.