9,701 research outputs found
Duration-differentiated Energy Services with a Continuum of Loads
As the proportion of total power supplied by renewable sources increases, it
gets more costly to use reserve generation to compensate for the variability of
renewables like solar and wind. Hence attention has been drawn to exploiting
flexibility in demand as a substitute for reserve generation. Flexibility has
different attributes. In this paper we consider loads requiring a constant
power for a specified duration (within say one day), whose flexibility resides
in the fact that power may be delivered at any time so long as the total
duration of service equals the load's specified duration. We give conditions
under which a variable power supply is adequate to meet these flexible loads,
and describe how to allocate the power to the loads. We also characterize the
additional power needed when the supply is inadequate. We study the problem of
allocating the available power to loads to maximize welfare, and show that the
welfare optimum can be sustained as a competitive equilibrium in a forward
market in which electricity is sold as service contracts differentiated by the
duration of service and power level. We compare this forward market with a spot
market in their ability to capture the flexiblity inherent in
duration-differentiated loads
Financial Coaching: A New Approach for Asset Building?
Through a literature review and interviews with nonprofit financial coaches, examines the concepts, training, and capacity building involved in financial coaching for low-income families, as well as critiques of existing models and their implications
Electricity Liberalisation in Britain: the quest for a satisfactory wholesale market design
Britain was the exemplar of electricity market reform, demonstrating the importance of ownership unbundling and workable competition in generation and supply. Privatisation created de facto duopolies that supported increasing price-cost margins and induced excessive (English) entry. Concentration was ended by trading horizontal for vertical integration in subsequent mergers. Competition arrived just as the Pool was replaced by New Electricity Trading Arrangements (NETA) intended to address its claimed shortcomings. NETA cost over £700 million, and had ambiguous market impacts. Prices fell dramatically as a result of (pre-NETA) competition, generating companies withdrew plant, causing fears about security of supply and a subsequent widening of price-cost margins.electricity, liberalisation, market design, market power
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