Energy Policy and Planning Group
UHERO fellows conduct research to evaluate impacts of past and prospective energy-related policies, and engage with policymakers and stakeholders on contemporary and emerging energy issues, such as natural hazard resilience and associated clean air goals, energy efficiency, electric vehicles, and carbon taxes.
Rooftop solar is now competitive with utility-scale power in Hawaiʻi
By Michael Roberts We need to transition away from fossil fuels quickly, and with inexpensive renewables and batteries, we can do so in a cost effective manner, so long as we employ a sensible plan and the right policies. But what are the tradeoffs involved with how we do it? In most places, rooftop solar […]
Read MoreEV driver characteristics: Evidence from Hawaii
Electric vehicles (EVs) offer an opportunity to dramatically decrease greenhouse gas emissions within the transport sector if fueled by renewable energy. Hawaii had been early-on considered an ideal place to launch new EVs because of the limited driving range of its island geography. Though it ranks second in new EV registrations per capita in the […]
Read MoreDr. Frank Wolak: “How Should the Public Utilities Commission Regulate Hawaiian Electric Company for Better Integration of Renewable Energy?”
On Friday November 2, Frank Wolak, the Holbrook Working Professor of Economics at Stanford and Director of Stanford’s Program on Energy and Sustainable Development, gave a special seminar “How Should the Public Utilities Commission Regulate Hawaiian Electric Company for Better Integration of Renewable Energy?” His talk summarized the many ways conventional regulation and rate design […]
Read MoreIntegrating Renewable Energy with Time Varying Pricing
With increasing adoption of intermittent sources of natural hazard resilience, effective integration is paramount to fully realizing societal benefits. This study asks the question, how valuable is residential real-time pricing (RTP) in comparison to time-of-use (TOU) rates to absorb increasing sources of intermittent renewable energy? We couple a detailed power sector model with a residential […]
Read MoreIntegrating Renewable Energy: A Commercial Sector Perspective on Price-Responsive Load-Shifting
Price-based demand response is an important component to achieving Hawaii’s 100% Renewable Portfolio Standard. This report provides a review of the impacts of time varying pricing programs for the commercial and industrial sectors. It presents commercial sector load patterns and rates for Oahu to gain insight into the potential impacts by sector of implementing time […]
Read MoreGoverning Green Power: How Should Utilities of the Future Make Money?
This report summarizes a two-day conference that addressed how future electric utilities will make money, a question provoked by advances in renewable energy and other distributed resources that cast doubt on conventional regulatory and business models. Engagement with issues in all of the sessions was strong, giving expression to a wide range of observations, opinions […]
Read MoreVariable Pricing and the Cost of Renewable Power
By Michael Roberts How much will it cost to eliminate use of fossil fuels? There is reason for optimism. Technological progress has lowered the cost of wind and solar power to make them competitive with coal and natural gas on a levelized basis. Despite this progress, a recent study by Gowrisankaran, Reynolds and Samano, “Intermittency […]
Read MoreDo electric vehicle incentives matter? Evidence from the 50 U.S. states
UHERO congratulates Sherilyn Wee, Makena Coffman, and Sumner La Croix on the publication of, “Do electric vehicle incentives matter? Evidence from the 50 U.S. states,” in Research Policy. This research measures the effectiveness of state-level policies on the adoption of electric vehicles in the United States. Read more about this in The Role of Policy […]
Read MoreNot All Regions Are Alike: Evaluating the Effect of Oil Price Shocks on Local and Aggregate Economies
Using a sample of 48 contiguous U.S. states for the period 1973-2013, we study how oil price shocks influence state-level economic growth. The analysis incorporates (1) a structural decomposition of the supply and demand factors that drive the real price of crude oil; (2) heterogeneity of states in terms of their production and consumption of […]
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