ESD.162/15.032/6.695 Engineering, Economics and Regulation of the Electric Power Sector
Spring 2013
Instructors: Jose Ignacio Perez-Arriaga, Christopher Roland Knittel, Carlos Batlle Lopez
TA: Tommy Chun Ting Leung
Lecture:
MW 10:30 AM-12:00 PM
(E52-175)
Recitation: F 10:30 AM-12:00 PM
(E52-175)
Office hours (Ignacio): W 13:30-15:30 (E19-307L)
Office hours (Tommy): Th 15:00-16:00 (E19, third floor, student cubicles)
Information:
The course presents an in-depth interdisciplinary perspective of the electric power sector, with regulation providing the link among the engineering, economic, legal and environmental viewpoints. Generation dispatch, demand response, optimal network flows, risk allocation, reliability of service, renewable energy sources, ancillary services, tariff design, distributed generation, rural electrification, multinational electricity markets, environmental impacts, carbon markets and strategic sustainability issues will be addressed under both traditional and competitive regulatory frameworks.
The course will make available the engineering, economic and legal basis to critically evaluate the regulatory instruments that are used worldwide for electricity supply activities that are performed as regulated monopolies or under competitive conditions. Most of these regulatory approaches are also of application in other industrial sectors.
The knowledge acquired in the course will provide the comprehensive understanding of electric power systems that will be needed for research in this field, as well as for future professional activities in the energy sector, whether in industry, government or consulting.
Prerequisites: H-Level Graduate. Preferably with background in policy analysis, microeconomics and/or engineering/science. Open to advanced undergraduates with permission of instructor.
Announcements
course evaluations, thanks, summer and book
Hi all,I hope you are enjoying a well-deserved rest, a good time at commencement day (if this is the case) and good prospects for the summer.
This message is to thank you for the almost 100% response to the course evaluations and to sum up the good lessons we have learned from them.
It seems that we have done well, but there are things to improve for the next year. In particular, we have heard your message clear and loud that the amount of work for a 12 credit course is much larger that the average (although many of you said that in the end you do not regret it) and we shall try to fix it for next year by streamlining the HW and the term paper, while trying to keep the message intact, so the academic burden is reduced. We think that this could be easily done. This year probably we have been carried away by the complete availability of the textbook in draft version for the first time. Anyway, we are happy to hear that you have learned a lot.
We have also taken note of the comments about the invited guests and other matters. Thanks again.
So, please tell your colleagues that might think taking the course next year not to be scared; we shall return to normal conditions (i.e. demanding but within reason).
By the way, the book (Regulation of the power sector) is out! What a great Christmas present!
http://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-1-4471-5034-3/page/1
Cheers and have a great summer
Ignacio
Announced on 03 June 2013 6:32 a.m. by Jose Ignacio Perez-Arriaga
Come on!!!
Hi all,Subject evaluations close tomorrow Monday, May 20, at 9AM and I have been told that ESD.162 only has a 29% response rate so far (the present average of all ESD courses is 49%).
Come on, at least we have to do better than the average! You can contribute to make the course better for future students.
To do it, you have to go to: http://web.mit.edu/subjectevaluation/evaluate.html
Thank you!
Ignacio
Announced on 19 May 2013 6:55 p.m. by Jose Ignacio Perez-Arriaga
thanks God, it's Friday
Hi all,The course is over. Congratulations for the good work. Many impressive term papers. I shall send the grades to the Registrar shortly.
The winners of the 5 minute presentation context (after a fully subjective evaluation by me) are:
1. Jonas Hiltrop (1st prize: Spanish…)
2. Michael Craig (2nd prize: French…)
who can drop by my office to pick up the prizes before I travel to Europe next Tuesday. My congratulations to the many runner ups. Sorry, only two bottles this time.
Pleeease, do not forget the on line course evaluations. This is the site you have to go to:
http://web.mit.edu/subjectevaluation
You have until Monday, May 20 at 9 AM
Don’t forget the TAs and invited lecturers.
Your feedback is very valuable to us and your student colleagues that may consider taking this course in the future.
I wish you a successful end of the term and a great summer.
Ignacio
Announced on 17 May 2013 8:52 a.m. by Jose Ignacio Perez-Arriaga
Late review of power system descriptions in the HWs
Dear all,I have finally succeeded to fully review your system descriptions for HWs up to 9. As usual, except for the case of HW7.Q1, I have tried to include comments for each of you in each of the HWs.
Said so, I want to take advantage to add a couple of closing remarks. First of all, I want to apologize for having been so missing all throughout the term. After breaking my Achilles tendon, the whole term has been a kind of nightmare, so it has been hard for me to travel and even to keep track of my duties.
Also, especially to those “braves” of you who have resisted to the end, I wanted to congratulate and thank you for your effort. Reading all your homeworks is a hard task, but let me tell you that when doing it this year, it has been great to see that majority of you has worked very hard on them.
I just hope that (at least some of) you now feel that you have not fully lost your time with us, and that you have learned anything new and useful.
Best
Carlos
Announced on 15 May 2013 4:19 p.m. by Carlos Batlle Lopez
your 5 min presentations
Hi all,I continue being impressed by the quality of most of your term papers. Congratulations again, I hope the effort was worth it.
For your 5 (five) minute presentation, the idea is that you explain just one of your proposed measures (presenting ten topics in 5 minutes is only for reckless tenured professors...).
I have uploaded in Stellar the complete version of my slides yesterday (Florence and all)
Cheers
Ignacio
Announced on 14 May 2013 2:26 p.m. by Jose Ignacio Perez-Arriaga
