Environmental and Energy Economics Seminar:

The Energy Institute collaborates with other departments on the UC Berkeley campus to coordinate the Environmental and Energy Economics Seminar Series. The seminars host both local and visiting academic speakers to present recent work on topics pertaining to the economics of the environment and/or energy markets.

We do not distribute papers from the seminars. Some authors have made their papers publicly available through the link to the title of the seminar.

Subscribe to the EEE email list to stay up to date with our current seminar schedule.

Energy Markets Workshops:

The Energy Institute also collaborates with LBNL to coordinate the Energy Markets workshop series once a month, please see upcoming/past speakers below.

Upcoming:

  • Monday, December 4, 2023: 4:00-5:00pm, 241 Giannini Hall, Duncan Callaway, UC Berkeley, “Accelerating Transmission Expansion by Using Advanced Conductors in Existing Right-of-Way”
    • Abstract: As countries pursue decarbonization goals, the rapid expansion of transmission capacity for renewable energy (RE) integration poses a significant challenge due to hurdles such as permitting and cost allocation. However, we find that large-scale reconductoring with advanced composite-core conductors can cost-effectively double transmission capacity within existing right-of-way (ROW), with limited additional permitting. This strategy unlocks a high availability of increasingly economically viable RE resources in close proximity to the existing network. We implement reconductoring in a model of the United States power system, showing that the consideration of reconductoring enables four times more transmission build-out by 2035 – representing over 80% of the transmission needed to reach over 90% clean electricity. With $180 billion in system cost savings by 2050, reconductoring presents a cost-effective and time-efficient, yet underutilized, opportunity to accelerate global transmission expansion.

Past:

  • Monday, November 13, 2023: 4:00-5:00pm, 241 Giannini Hall, Will Gorman, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, “The Interconnection Dilemma: A Roadmap for Unlocking Queue Backlogs”
  • Monday, October 23, 2023: 4:00-5:00pm, 241 Giannini Hall, James Bushnell (with Aaron Smith), University of California, Davis, “Everyone’s Electricity Models are Wrong: Measuring Just How Wrong”
  • Monday, September 18, 2023: 4:00-5:00pm, 241 Giannini Hall, Julie Mulvaney Kemp, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, “Estimates of Transmission Market Value Using Empirical and Modeled Locational Marginal Prices”
  • Monday, August 7, 2023: 4:00-5:00pm, 241 Giannini Hall, Andy Satchwell (with Peter Cappers, Cameron Brooks, Sam Kozel), Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, “A Snapshot of EV-Specific Rate Designs Among U.S. Investor-Owned Electric Utilities“
  • Monday, July 10, 2023: 4:00-5:00pm, 241 Giannini Hall, Lucas Davis, University of California, Berkeley, “The Economic Determinants of Heat Pump Adoption“
  • Monday, June 12, 2023: 4:00-5:00pm, 241 Giannini Hall, Severin Borenstein, University of California, Berkeley, “Energy Hogs and Energy Angels: What Does Residential Electricity Usage Really Tell Us?”
  • Monday, May 8, 2023: 4:00-5:00pm, 241 Giannini Hall, Jill Moraski and Amol Phadke, University of California, Berkeley/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, “The Missing ‘Transmission Peaker'”