Market Design, Investment, and Interconnection to the US Power Grid

向低碳电网的过渡将需要在替代发电方面进行大规模投资。这项投资的一个障碍是美国的输电政策，该政策是为化石燃料发电机而非可再生能源设计的。该项目将重点放在互联过程上，新的发电机用来连接现有的输电基础设施。这一过程是发电机上线前最耗时、最昂贵的步骤之一。研究人员将根据工程报告构建关于互联互通成本的新数据，利用这些数据分析互联互通过程的设计如何成为可再生能源部署的瓶颈，并量化政策改革的成本和收益。提高可再生能源发电机完成互联过程的速度，有可能使美国每年增加的可再生能源装机容量翻一番。尽管它对能源转换很重要，但对这种互联过程的设计进行的经济研究很少。新的发电机通常支付互联所需的输电升级的全部成本，即使现有和未来的发电机也从这些升级中受益。因此，在排队的发电机之间存在两种空间外部性：(1)发电机的退出可能导致物理上相邻的同期发电机的重新评估，这进一步导致延迟并增加它们的互联成本；(2)发电机的建成可能会降低相邻较低排队的发电机的互联成本，从而降低它们退出的可能性。还有一个等待时间外部性：随着更多的发电机进入排队，输电组织需要更长的时间才能给出接入电网的成本估计，这就导致了更多的延误。该项目将首先建立关于互联互通成本、互联互通排队等待时间和传输规划的新数据集。其次，使用这些新数据，该项目将估计各种因素如何影响退出决定，并量化这些外部性的重要性。第三，该项目将开发和评估一种新的排队模型，该模型具有队列中发电机之间的丰富外部性。最后，该项目将使用该模型来模拟替代排队设计或互联互通成本补贴对取款率和福利的影响。此外，该项目将使用该模型来计算电网运营商在可能出现可再生能源增长的地区积极规划输电项目的影响。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The transition to a low-carbon electricity grid will require massive investment in alternative electricity generation. An obstacle to this investment is US electricity transmission policy, which was designed for fossil fuel generators rather than renewable energy. This project will focus on the interconnection process, which new generators use to connect to the existing transmission infrastructure. This process is one of the most time-consuming and costly steps before a generator goes online. The researchers will construct new data on the cost of interconnection based on engineering reports, use the data to analyze how the design of the interconnection process acts as a bottleneck to renewable deployment and quantify the costs and benefits of policy reforms. Increasing the rate at which renewable energy generators complete the interconnection process has the potential to double the amount of renewable energy capacity the US adds each year. Despite its importance to the energy transition, there has been little economic research on the design of this interconnection process. New generators usually pay the entire cost of the transmission upgrades required for their interconnection, even though existing and future generators also benefit from these upgrades. As a result, there are two spatial externalities across generators in the queue: (1) the withdrawal of a generator may lead to re-evaluations of physically adjacent contemporaneous generators, which further leads to delays and increases their interconnection costs, and (2) the completion of a generator may reduce interconnection costs for adjacent lower-queued generators, decreasing their likelihood to withdraw. There is also a waiting time externality: as more generators enter the queue, it takes longer for the transmission organization to give them cost estimates of connecting to the power grid, which leads to more delays. The project will first construct new data sets on interconnection costs, interconnection queue wait times, and transmission planning. Second, using these new data, the project will estimate how various factors affect the decision to withdraw and quantify the importance of these externalities. Third, the project will develop and estimate a new model of queuing that features rich externalities across generators in the queue. Finally, the project will use the model to simulate the effects of alternative queuing designs or a subsidy for interconnection costs on withdrawal rates and welfare. Furthermore, the project will use the model to calculate the impact of grid operators proactively planning transmission projects in regions likely to see growth in renewable energy.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.