Future of Utilities - Utilities of the Future

How Technological Innovations in Distributed Energy Resources Will Reshape the Electric Power Sector

1st Edition - March 10, 2016

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Editor: Fereidoon Sioshansi
Paperback ISBN: 9780128042496
eBook ISBN: 9780128043202

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Description

Future of Utilities - Utilities of the Future: How technological innovations in distributed generation will reshape the electric power sector relates the latest information on the electric power sector its rapid transformation, particularly on the distribution network and customer side. Trends like the rapid rise of self-generation and distributed generation, microgrids, demand response, the dissemination of electric vehicles and zero-net energy buildings that promise to turn many consumers into prosumers are discussed. The book brings together authors from industry and academic backgrounds to present their original, cutting-edge and thought-provoking ideas on the challenges currently faced by electric utilities around the globe, the opportunities they present, and what the future might hold for both traditional players and new entrants to the sector. The book's first part lays out the present scenario, with concepts such as an integrated grid, microgrids, self-generation, customer-centric service, and pricing, while the second part focuses on how innovation, policy, regulation, and pricing models may come together to form a new electrical sector, exploring the reconfiguring of the current institutions, new rates design in light of changes to retail electricity markets and energy efficiency, and the cost and benefits of integration of distributed or intermittent generation, including coupling local renewable energy generation with electric vehicle fleets. The final section projects the future function and role of existing electrical utilities and newcomers to this sector, looking at new pathways for business and pricing models, consumer relations, technology, and innovation.

Key Features

Contains discussions that help readers understand the underlying causes and drivers of change in the electrical sector, and what these changes mean in financial, operational, and regulatory terms
Provides thought-provoking ideas on the challenges currently faced by electric utilities around the globe, the opportunities they present, and what the future might hold for both traditional players and new entrants to the sector
Helps readers anticipate what developments are likely to define the function and role of the utility of the future

Readership

Professionals and researchers interested in the power sector, policy makers and regulators, senior managers of the power industry, and the technical community in the field of power generation, storage, transmission and distribution.

Part I. What is changing and what are the implications
1. What future for electric power sector
2. The value of an integrated grid
3. Microgrids: Finally finding their place
4. The new power on the consumer side of the meter
5. A customer-centric view of electricity service
6. The role of the utility and pricing in the transition

Part II. Innovation, policy, regulations, pricing
7. Regulation for a sustainable energy system – reconfiguring the institutions
8. Rate design of the future
9. Rates and revenues: Differential impacts of customer-sited distributed generation in vertically-integrated and competitive retail markets
10. Rehabilitating Retail Electricity Markets: Pitfalls and Opportunities
11. Assessing the Cost and Benefits of DER Integration
12. Efficiency and equity considerations in designing rates in the context of the death spiral for electric utilities
13. Modeling the impacts of disruptive technologies and pricing on peak demand
14. Intermittency – it’s the short-term that matters
15. Opportunities and challenges in coupling local renewable energy generation with EV fleets

Part III. Function and role of the utility of the future – or the future of utilities
16. Identifying value pools, building new business models, and defining strategies rooted in inherent capabilities in utilities
17. Utilities don’t simply connect, they integrate
18. Smart, renewable or decentralized: Strategic choices of European energy incumbents
19. Imagine a future where entrepreneurial, profitable utilities thrive despite disruptive technologies: German case study
20. The future of utility customers and utility customers of the future
21. Flexibility business models: new actors, new roles, new rules
22. Decentralized reliability options – market based capacity arrangements
23. Network pricing for the prosumer future: Demand-based tariffs or nodal pricing?
24. The evolution of smart grids begs disaggregated nodal pricing
25. The distributed utility: Conflicts and opportunities between the incumbent utilities, suppliers and the emerging new entrants
26. Innovation platform enables the Internet of things

Product details

No. of pages: 492
Language: English
Published: March 10, 2016
Imprint: Academic Press
Paperback ISBN: 9780128042496
eBook ISBN: 9780128043202

About the Editor

Fereidoon Sioshansi

Dr. Fereidoon Sioshansi is President of Menlo Energy Economics, a consulting firm based in San Francisco with over 35 years of experience in the electric power sector working in analysis of energy markets, specializing in the policy, regulatory, technical and environmental aspects of the electric power sector in the US and internationally. His research and professional interests are concentrated in demand and price forecasting, electricity market design, competitive pricing & bidding, integrated resource planning, energy conservation and energy efficiency, economics of global climate change, sustainability, energy security, renewable energy technologies, and comparative performance of competitive electricity markets. Dr. Sioshansi advises major utility clients and government policy makers domestically and internationally on electricity market reform, restructuring and privatization of the electric power sector. He has published numerous reports, books, book chapters and papers in peer-reviewed journals on a wide range of subjects. His professional background includes working at Southern California Edison Co. (SCE), Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), NERA, and Global Energy Decisions. He is the editor and publisher of EEnergy Informer, a monthly newsletter with international circulation. He is on the Editorial Advisory Board of The Electricity Journal where he is regularly featured in the “Electricity Currents” section. Dr. Sioshansi also serves on the editorial board of Utilities Policy and is a frequent contributor to Energy Policy. Since 2006, He has edited 12 books on related topics with Elsevier.

Affiliations and Expertise

President, Menlo Energy Economics, San Francisco, CA, USA

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