Part of EPIcenter’s mission is to foster an energy innovation ecosystem in the Southeast. This includes making Georgia an attractive place for energy and cleantech-focused startup companies and helping them succeed. But that success does not depend on the founder’s creativity and stamina alone. A mix of public and private funding sources and access to […]
In “Wiring America,” EPIcenter affiliate Gaurav Doshi analyzes how Texas’s CREZ high-capacity transmission build-out curbed the market power of fossil-fuel generators. Using a two-stage empirical strategy, the study first shows that CREZ reduced wind curtailment, adding roughly 0.11 GWh of additional wind during peak hours and 0.22 GWh at the off-peak – and then demonstrates […]
This paper authored by EPIcenter affiliate Matt Oliver dicusses how pipeline congestion in the U.S. Rocky Mountain region creates sizable price wedges, or “basis differentials,” between closely linked hubs—Opal, WY, and Cheyenne, CO. As demand for transport approaches capacity on the 325-mile corridor (via CIG, WIC, and REX), secondary market scarcity rents drive the Cheyenne […]
This paper by EPIcenter affiliate Gaurav Doshi examines how Texas’s $6.8 billion CREZ transmission expansion catalyzed wind deployments in the West and Panhandle region. Employing a discrete choice framework, developers were found to be 20 percentage points more likely to locate in CREZ counties, implying a willingness to pay of roughly $2,808 per MW of […]
Our electrical grid—already under stress from climate‐amplified storms and the push to renewables—is a critical lifeline. Yet outages are costly, and until now, our best measures of how much U.S. households are truly willing to pay to avoid losing power (their “value of lost load,” or VoLL) came from surveys and macroeconomic models, offering wildly […]
Climate-driven wildfires are increasingly ignited by overhead power lines, prompting utilities to deploy preemptive Public Safety Power Shutoffs (PSPS). Equitably Allocating Wildfire Resilience Investments for Power Grids studies how the Biden Administration’s Justice40 mandate (40 % of federal infrastructure benefits to disadvantaged communities via the CEJST index) actually plays out in a Texas case study […]
“Who breathes cleaner air when Americans put solar panels on their roofs? Using plant-level emissions data, an air-pollution transport model, and census-block demographics, Bobby Harris (Georgia Tech)—the study’s EPIcenter affiliate— and Travis E. Dauwalter (Artera Services) show that today’s rooftop solar fleet delivers $0.77 in environmental benefits per person annually and disproportionately benefits higher-income households. […]
Workplace EV charging congestion threatens corporate decarbonisation targets. Asensio, Apablaza, Lawson and Walsh (Georgia Tech; EPIcenter affiliate Omar I. Asensio) examine whether a tiered price of $1 per hour after 4 hours and injunctive “charging-etiquette” emails can curb charger over-stay across 105 stations and 84 employees. High-frequency session data are analyzed with sharp and dynamic […]
Federal housing block grants may be an untapped tool for energy-efficiency policy. EPIcenter affiliate Omar Asensio and his coauthors Churkina, Rafter and O’Hare (Georgia Tech, Harvard Business School and Georgia State University) link 5.9 million monthly utility bills with 16 years of Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) and HOME Investment Partnerships projects in Albany, GA […]
How can a country minimize long-term power-system costs when future electricity demand is uncertain? Yuang Chen (PhD ISyE Georgia Tech and now assistant professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong at Shenzhen), Beste Basciftci (PhD ISyE Georgia Tech and now assistant professor at the University of Iowa) and Georgia Tech’s Valerie M. Thomas (an […]
When a hurricane is coming, can a city with lots of electric cars top-up all those batteries fast enough without frying the local power grid? Three Georgia Tech engineers—Alejandro Owen Aquino, Samuel Talkington and EPIcenter affiliate Daniel Molzahn—built a computer model to find out. Using realistic-but-not-real data from Greensboro, North Carolina, the model shows that […]
Listen to the Curtailment 101 podcast: Created with Google NotebookLM, May 16th, 2025 EPIcenter affiliates Gaurav Doshi and Matthew Oliver’s article in The Energy Forum discusses the why grid operators occasionally curtail wind and solar output when transmission capacity is insufficient or demand is low, and the economic and environmental impacts of these decisions. Congestion-based curtailment […]
The assistant professor in applied economics researches, among other topics, ways to make the benefits of large electrification projects more transparent. It’s a chicken and egg situation: Should renewable energy projects launch first hoping that transmission lines to pipe generated power to distant places will follow on their heels? Or should the transmission lines be […]
Smoke cloud rising from a brush wildfire burning in San Francisco, California (Source: Adobe Stock) You’re managing the Texas Panhandle’s power grid. Heavy winds are blowing, and a worn-out utility pole ignites a fire by crashing onto a transmission line. Luckily, the fire department arrives quickly, putting out the fire before it spreads to nearby […]
The NSF grant winner and associate professor is working to improve the resilience of power grids while also indulging in his other love: history. Daniel Molzahn will readily admit he’s a Cheesehead. Born and brought up in Wisconsin, the associate professor at the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering attended the University of Wisconsin, Madison, […]
Top (Left to Right): John Kim, Maghfira “Afi” Ramadhani, Mehmet “Akif” AglarBottom (Left to Right): La’Darius Thomas, Yifan Liu, Niraj Palsule The Energy Policy and Innovation Center (EPIcenter) at Georgia Tech has announced the selection of six students for its inaugural Summer Research Program. The doctoral candidates, pursuing degrees in electrical and computer engineering, economics, computer science, and […]
Master of the rebound — Economist Matthew Oliver measures the sometimes concealed costs of pivoting to clean energy Students in Matthew Oliver’s economics of environment and international energy markets classes likely don’t have a clue about his unusual journey to the lectern: “I was bent on being a rock and roll musician from the time […]
Shifting focus from theoretical physics to research on environmental problems over the course of her distinguished career, the professor is working to decarbonize the industrial complex. Climate change might feel like an intractable problem but Valerie Thomas wants us to take heart. “It’s not hard, we make it hard. We can recreate our industrial system,” […]
In October, Georgia Tech’s Strategic Energy Institute (SEI) celebrated its 20th anniversary with campus, government, and industry partners. Since its inception as an interdisciplinary research initiative in 2004, SEI has grown and evolved into one of the top energy institutes in the nation, convening and facilitating multidisciplinary teams in the nation’s critical path to net-zero and climate […]
Top Row (Left to Right): Michael Biehler, Winner of 2024 James G. Campbell Fellowship, Erin Phillips & Sanggyun Kim – 2024 Spark Award WinnersBottom Row (Left to Right): Keun Hee Kim, Richard Asiamah, Erik Barbosa – 2024 Spark Award Winners The Strategic Energy Institute and the Energy, Policy, and Innovation Center at Georgia Tech are proud to announce the […]