REDUCING THE REGULATORY BARRIERS TO A TRANSMISSION NETWORK THAT FACILITATES RENEWABLE ENERGY DEPLOYMENT IN A WHOLESALE MARKET REGIME
FRANK WOLAK, STEPHEN BOYD AND MARK THURBER
PROGRAM ON ENERGY AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT (PESD), ECONOMICS, ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING
Because the regions with richest solar and wind resources are distant from major population centers, the current lack of adequate transmission infrastructure is among the most significant barriers to large-scale deployment of renewable energy in the United States. In part, the far-from-optimal configuration of the transmission network for the current and future expected geographic distribution of demand and renewable energy resources reflects the dearth of analytical tools that electricity regulators can use to evaluate the benefits of transmission expansion under wholesale
market regimes and with large penetrations of intermittent renewables. The research proposed here will develop a quantitative model that seeks to fill these gaps-specifically for the case of the transmission upgrades in the Western Electricity Coordinating Council (WECC) but in a way that can be generalized to any region with a wholesale electricity market. The model can also serve as a tool for analyzing how various policies, including those aimed at reducing CO2 emissions, will affect the optimal configuration of a transmission network. We will complement the quantitative model with qualitative case studies of the transmission planning processes in all of the major US electricity markets. This second piece of work will capture some of the political and institutional constraints on the transmission planning process and also provide insights into what kinds of processes have been most successful. Ultimately, the project aims to engage regulators and disseminate our results in order to have a real-world influence on grid planning.