EIMC2 Talk

Thursday, May 8, 2025 - 11:00am

Event Calendar Category

EIMC2 Talks

Speaker Name

Conleigh Byers

Affiliation

Harvard University

Building and Room number

45-600B

Join Zoom meeting

Watch via zoom

"Electricity Market Design and Risk Trading with Heterogeneous Demand"

The rise of variable renewable energy, storage, and load growth due to data centers with increasing extreme weather events has called into question whether current electricity market designs are sufficient for a decarbonized future. Many systems today have turned to some form of centrally administered resource adequacy mechanism beyond short-run markets to manage risk. Energy consumers are heterogeneous – differentiated by demand profiles, flexibility, reliability requirements, and risk appetite. The primary contributions of this work are (1) formulation of a non-algorithmic method for incomplete markets with risk-trading (2) incorporation of a multitude of swap and option contract designs (3) incorporation of endogenous demand in market participation and risk trading. From this framework, we can explore which contracts designs are appropriate for which types of heterogeneous demand. These conclusions should in turn influence the ongoing debate on organized long-run markets for electricity. 

Conleigh Byers is an Environmental Fellow at the Harvard University Center for the Environment and the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. Her research uses tools from operations research, electrical engineering, and economics to design decarbonized energy systems, with a focus on electricity market design and power systems operations and planning. She received a doctorate in Electrical Engineering from ETH Zürich, a dual masters from MIT in Electrical Engineering & Computer Science and Technology & Policy, and an undergraduate degree from Princeton University.