Innovation and Risk in the Power Grid

Session Submission Type: Panel

Abstract

As the U.S. power grid confronts intensifying natural hazards, rising electricity demand, and aging infrastructure, policymakers must decide how to enable innovation while managing risk. This panel brings together four studies that examine this dynamic across organizations, markets, and technologies.

The first paper investigates how organizations responsible for grid planning and operations are adapting to multi-hazard threats, including extreme heat, wildfires, and space weather. Drawing on document analysis, focus groups, and interviews, the study examines how organizations in California and the Western U.S. are moving beyond legacy single-hazard planning toward more integrated approaches.

The second paper develops a multilevel governance framework to conceptualize different models of risk sharing in energy transitions. Using mixed methods, the study compares how approaches to managing climate-related risks vary across cases of climate risk, involving renewable energy project development, coal phaseout, and climate insurance in the U.S.

The third paper examines battery energy storage as a transformative planning and operational resource. Drawing on document analysis and interviews with energy system planners and grid architecture experts, the study explores how storage could shift the logic of electricity system planning from building for peak demand toward planning around a “radical average.” Through comparative analysis across six U.S. states, the paper traces how battery energy storage is being integrated through policies, resource plans, and on-the-ground deployment.

The fourth paper investigates stranded nuclear and coal power plant assets in Ohio. Through five case studies, this paper explores why investor-owned utilities sold or decommissioned many of their power plants, only for those assets to be acquired by private equity and other financial investors. The analysis draws attention to the role of regional transmission organization and wholesale electricity markets, as extensions of politics. The study findings can inform policy needed to manage potential future asset stranding events.

Together, these papers demonstrate how innovation and risk are governed in the power grid.

Policy Area

• Natural Resource, Energy, and Environmental Policy

Discussants

• Gabriel Chan, University of Minnesota

• Shan Zhou, Purdue University

Organizer

• Calvin Spanbauer, Princeton University

Individual Presentations

• Extreme Heat, Wildfires, and Space Weather? Organizational Adaptation to Multi-Hazard Risks in the Power Grid - Presenting Author: Calvin Spanbauer, Princeton University

• Multilevel Governance and Risk Sharing Models for the US Energy Transition - Presenting Author: Kathryn Chelminski, Brown University

• Battery Energy Storage Deployment: Transforming Planning to the Radical Average - Presenting Author: Yifan Liu, Harvard University; Non-Presenting Co-Author: Stephanie Lenhart, Boise State University; Non-Presenting Co-Author: Elizabeth J. Wilson, Aalto University FINLAND

• Stranded in Ohio: Grid Governance, Wholesale Markets and the Political Economy of Power Plant Revaluations - Presenting Author: Elliot Posner, Case Western Reserve University