404 - Resource Markets Design, Regulation, and Reform
Core/Elective: Core
Credits: 1.0
Quarter Taught: Winter
Synopsis:
This course will explore the evolution of the natural resource markets in the United States through the lens of the regulatory and quasi-governing agencies that have shaped their structure. The course will focus on electric power markets but will compare these market structures with those that govern water and other relevant systems. Students will also study current state and federal policy innovation creating or slowing current market reform.
Course Objectives:
This course will provide students with an understanding of federal, state, and regional policy and market stakeholders that impact the functioning of US wholesale and retail electric power markets. Students will develop a deeper understanding of the end-to-end transport of electricity, the multi-faceted value proposition of power and storage assets, and how public policy can drastically affect consumer pricing and the adoption of new technologies:
- Understand electric utility regulatory history, and its impact on market design, at both the wholesale and retail level;
- Identify the role of key local, state, and federal regulators and market administrators, the interplay of their various authorities, and how various policies have increased or decreased their market relevance;
- Analyze a variety of policy-based market-making tools to incentivize or dis-incentivize various forms of energy; and
- Compare and contrast the work of various state-level agencies to reinvent their markets design