Prof. Jacob Mays on Electric Markets & Resource Adequacy

special celebrity guest star Jacob Mays brings a market design professor's perspective to our discussion of resource adequacy, electric markets, and deregulation vs restructuring

Show Notes

Jacob Mays, PhD, Matt Schroettnig, Ahlmahz Negash, PhD, and Paul Dockery discuss a paper Prof. Mays co-authored on contractual form in electricity reliability obligations, how it applies to the program getting developed in the Northwest, and what perspective he has on electric market development in the Northwest.

06:52 - discuss recently published article by Professor Mays and Han Shu

• Shu, Han, and Jacob Mays. "Beyond capacity: contractual form in electricity reliability obligations." arXiv preprint arXiv:2210.10858 (2022).
• episode from the last time Prof. Mays was on Public Power Underground

23:54 - applying Prof. Mays insights to the Western Power Pool’s Western Resource Adequacy Program

47:27 - thoughts on the NYT article on electric utility deregulation

• Why are Energy Prices so High? Some Experts Blame Deregulation by Ivan Penn
• twitter thread by @MichaelGiberso3 in response to the article
• substack post on 
• Knowledge Problem by Lynn Kiesling
• RTO Insider article in response to the NY Times piece
• Ari Pesckoe twitter thread in response to the article

54:56 - New Segment!: Ahlmahz’s Insightful Question of the Week!

1:01:43 - Short to Ground; where we TL;DR our way through the rest of the news

• NWPCC: NW Needs More Reserves to Maintain Resource Adequacy
• Pause in Storms Allows Utilities, State Responders Valuable Time to Regroup
• Washington State Report: Salmon Remain ‘In Crisis’
• IOUs Report Significant Demand Reduction With Time-of-Use Rates With EVs
• PG&E, Energy Vault Seek OK for Biggest U.S. Long-Duration Storage System
• Eugene Board Votes to Develop Decommissioning Plan
• Goforth, T., Nock, D. Air pollution disparities and equality assessments of US national decarbonization strategies. Nat Commun 13, 7488 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-35098-4
• Texas PUC nears market redesign decision amid criticism performance credit will not spur new generation
• Rachel Dibble has been named the vice president of bulk marketing at the Bonneville Power Administration
• Spot Market Power
• La Nina
• NOAA Climate Forecasts
• WY2023 Water Supply Forecast

1:11:53 - we talk a lot more about Texas’s controversial Performance Credit Mechanism

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What is Public Power Underground?

Public Power Underground is more than a discussion about public ownership of electric infrastructure, the infotaining episodes cover the energy enthusiast trifecta of electrification, markets, and people. The hosts interview industry experts on a broad range of energy industry and energy-industry-adjacent topics at the nexus of electric utilities and the energy transition. The podcast doesn’t take itself too seriously and frequently plays energy inspired games like “energy enthusiasm distilled,” “draw an analogy,” and “say something nice about electric utilities."