Tag: distributed generation

Energy Tradeoffs Podcast #36 – Scott Burger

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This week’s EnergyTradeoffs.com podcast episode features David Spence interviewing MIT’s Scott Burger about his research on “How to Value Distributed Energy Resources.”

David and Scott discuss the problems that can arise if rooftop solar is overcompensated through net metering when rooftop solar is mostly installed by wealthier customers. Scott and his colleagues “simulated rooftop solar adoption across single family homes [in] the Chicago, Illinois area” and found that bills dropped for rooftop solar adopters and rose for those who didn’t adopt. This tended to increase costs for low-income consumers “[b]ecause adopters are (on average) wealthier than non-adopters.”

The discussion builds on one of Scott’s recent articles: “Why Distributed? A Critical Review of the Tradeoffs Between Centralized and Decentralized Resources,” which was published last year.

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Energy Tradeoffs Podcast #12 – Amy Stein

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Another week, another EnergyTradeoffs.com podcast episode. This week, the University of Florida’s Amy Stein talks with David Spence about her research on “Maintaining Reliability in a Distributed Energy World.”

Amy and David explore the challenges of maintaining power grid reliability when an increasing amount of electricity is produced by distributed sources such as rooftop solar. Amy explains how energy storage and demand response can provide this reliability. And she describes how these “reliability resources” may be a poor fit with historical methods of utility investment and regulation.

The interview builds on Amy’s 2016 article on “Distributed Reliability,” which was published in the University of Colorado Law Review.

The Energy Tradeoffs Podcast can be found at the following links: 
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