Electricity market design: Political economy and the clean energy transition

In a November talk hosted by the MIT Energy Initiative, William Hogan, the Raymond Plank Professor of Global Energy Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School, discussed his view that the clean energy transition exacerbates the tension between mandates and markets. Efficient electricity market design improvements are in competition with both command and control policies as well as the pressures of crony capitalism. The mistakes will be expensive, the transition will be delayed, and the outcome will remain uncertain. A great deal has occurred since the Energy Policy Act of almost 25 years ago; but a great deal remains to be done.

This talk was presented on November 9, 2016 as part of the IHS Markit Seminar Series.

About the speaker:

William W. Hogan is the Raymond Plank Professor of Global Energy Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School and Research Director of the Harvard Electricity Policy Group. He served on the faculty of Stanford University, where he founded the Energy Modeling Forum, and is a past president of the International Association for Energy Economics. Hogan's research focuses on the interaction of energy economics and public policy, with an emphasis on the restructuring of the electricity industry. He has worked to design the market structures and market rules by which regional transmission organizations coordinate bid-based markets. Selected papers are available at whogan.com.

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