Energy Justice Considerations in Energy Policy and Utility Cost Recovery

Dear Colleagues,

The next UW seminar on energy systems will take place March 07 from 4:00 pm till 5:00 pm in Mary Gates Hall, room 251.

Date: March 7, 2024

Topic: Energy Justice Considerations in Energy Policy and Utility Cost Recovery

Speaker: Dr. Ahlmahz Negash is a Principal Resource Planning Analyst at Tacoma Power.  Her role encompasses a wide range of activities including, leading regional planning efforts, resource modeling, evaluating policy impacts, and developing innovative demand-side projects. She recently completed a year-long sabbatical from Tacoma Power to lead collaborative energy justice research both locally and internationally. Prior to joining Tacoma Power, Ahlmahz was a research fellow at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim, Norway. She received her BS and PhD degrees in Electrical Engineering from the University of Washington in 2010 and 2015, respectively.

Abstract: Historically, the timing, magnitude, and location of demand in electrical grids was easy to forecast, and the supply was highly controllable. With the growth in variable renewable energy, distributed energy resources, and electrification of buildings and transportation, this is no longer the case. When planning investments which will be in service for decades, what’s the appropriate approach to balance infrastructure costs with the need for reliability of supply? The most stressed state of the electrical grid may no longer be the time with maximum gross demand, and there’s a wider range of resource states which can contribute to various types of grid stress.