scholarly journals Redistributing Agency: The Control Roots of Spot Pricing of Electricity

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Breslau
Keyword(s):  
Electrical Power ◽  
Engineering Optimization ◽  
Electricity Prices ◽  
Homeostatic Control ◽  
Load Following ◽  
System P ◽  
Control Scheme ◽  
The Face ◽  
Regulatory Politics ◽  
The U.S

The paper traces the development of the “spot pricing” for electrical power, which has provided the technique for calculating electricity prices in wholesale markets in most of the U.S., and is rapidly becoming the standard in many other countries. The model was first formalized by a group of engineers and economists associated with engineering professor Fred Schweppe, at MIT. From his position as a leading control theorist, well-known in the industry, Schweppe proposed an expansion of control theory that he argued would help break the deadlock in regulatory politics and benefit producers and consumers of power alike. He introduced the approach, which he called “homeostatic control” around 1978 in a seminar of the MIT Energy Lab. Derived by way of a biological metaphor, homeostatic control conceives of a self-correcting system that maintains its equilibrium state in the face of a changing environment. As Schweppe and his collaborators put it, their aim was “an efficient, internally-correcting control scheme” . Homeostatic control marked a departure from the “load-following” approach of system operators, who would constantly adjust the dispatch of power to meet the changing demand, or load. Schweppe’s group envisioned bringing consumers of power into the control system by constantly feeding them signals in the form of prices. The MIT team discovered through the contact between economists and engineers, the calculation for determining efficient prices is identical to the calculation used by engineers for meeting system load while minimizing costs. The Lagrange multipliers, or lambdas, derived from the engineering optimization are the best estimates of the marginal cost, and therefore the efficient prices, at each node of the system.

scholarly journals Redistributing Agency

2020 ◽  
Vol 52 (S1) ◽  
pp. 221-244
Author(s):  
Daniel Breslau
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Control System ◽  
Marginal Cost ◽  
Electrical Power ◽  
The United States ◽  
Engineering Optimization ◽  
Electricity Prices ◽  
Homeostatic Control ◽  
The Face ◽  
Regulatory Politics

The article traces the development of “spot pricing” for electrical power, which has provided the technique for calculating electricity prices in wholesale markets in most of the United States, and is rapidly becoming the standard in many other countries. The model was first formalized by a group of engineers and economists associated with the engineering professor Fred Schweppe, at MIT. From his position as a leading control theorist, well known in the industry, Schweppe proposed an expansion of control theory that he argued would help break the deadlock in regulatory politics and benefit producers and consumers of power alike. He introduced the approach, which he called “homeostatic control,” around 1978 in a seminar of the MIT Energy Lab. Derived by way of a biological metaphor, homeostatic control conceives of a self-correcting system that maintains its equilibrium state in the face of a changing environment. Schweppe’s group envisioned bringing consumers of power into the control system by constantly feeding them signals in the form of prices. The MIT team discovered through the contact between economists and engineers that the calculation for determining efficient prices is identical to the calculation used by engineers for meeting system load while minimizing costs. The Lagrange multipliers, or lambdas, derived from the engineering optimization are the best estimates of the marginal cost, and therefore the efficient prices, at each node of the system.

Choice Matters

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gordon Moore ◽  
John A. Quelch ◽  
Emily Boudreau
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Healthcare Provider ◽  
Healthcare System ◽  
Consumer Choice ◽  
Marketing Management ◽  
Appropriate Use ◽  
System P ◽  
The U.S

Choice Matters: How Healthcare Consumers Make Decisions (and Why Clinicians and Managers Should Care) is a timely and thoughtful exploration of the controversial role of consumers in the U.S. healthcare system. In most markets today, consumers have more options and autonomy than ever before. Empowered consumers easily shop around for products and services that better meet their needs, and they widely share their reviews on social media to inform and influence other consumers. Businesses have responded with better experiences and prices to compete for consumers’ business. Though healthcare has lagged behind other industries in this respect, there is a rising tide of interest in consumer choice and empowerment in healthcare markets. However, most healthcare provider organizations, individual doctors, and health insurers are unprepared to consider patients as consumers. The authors draw upon the fields of medicine, marketing, management, psychology, and public policy as they take a substantive, in-depth look at consumer choice and point out its appropriate use, as well as its limitations. This book addresses perplexing issues, such as how healthcare differs from other consumer-driven markets, how consumers make healthcare decisions, and how increased consumer choice in healthcare can not only aid and empower American consumers but also improve the overall healthcare system.

Cohabitants, Choice, and the Public Interest

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Leckey
Keyword(s):  
Social Change ◽  
Public Interest ◽  
Intimate Relationships ◽  
Family Law ◽  
Regulatory System ◽  
Law Reform ◽  
Private Law ◽  
The Public ◽  
System P ◽  
The Face

Through the narrow entry of property disputes between former cohabitants, this chapter aims to clarify thinking on issues crucial to philosophical examination of family law. It refracts big questions—such as what cohabitants should owe one another and the balance between choice and protection—through a legal lens of attention to institutional matters such as the roles of judges and legislatures. Canadian cases on unjust enrichment and English cases quantifying beneficial interests in a jointly owned home are examples. The chapter highlights limits on judicial law reform in the face of social change, both in substance and in the capacity to acknowledge the state's interest in intimate relationships. The chapter relativizes the focus on choice prominent in academic and policy discussions of cohabitation and highlights the character of family law, entwined with the general private law of property and obligations, as a regulatory system.

Exploring a 21st-Century Japan-Philippine Security Relationship: Linking Two Spokes Together?

Asian Survey ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 49 (4) ◽  
pp. 691-715 ◽  
Author(s):  
Renato Cruz De Castro
Keyword(s):  
21St Century ◽  
The Face ◽  
Security Relationship ◽  
The U.S

The article examines Tokyo's efforts to link the Philippine and the Japanese security spokes in the face of Beijing's moves to widen the cleavage between both countries' alliances with the U.S. and render them irrelevant. The article concludes that Manila and Tokyo must first reconfigure a defense relationship that is not merely a military aggregation but a political apparatus enabling them to constructively engage an emergent China.

scholarly journals Probabilistic Performance Assessment vs. the Safety Case Approach

MRS Advances ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (17-18) ◽  
pp. 987-992
Author(s):  
François Diaz-Maurin ◽  
Rodney C. Ewing
Keyword(s):  
Performance Assessment ◽  
Uncertainty Quantification ◽  
International Community ◽  
Regulatory Framework ◽  
Geologic Repository ◽  
Large Uncertainty ◽  
Safety Case ◽  
The Face ◽  
The U.S

ABSTRACTThe “safety case” approach has been developed to address the issue of evaluating the performance of a geologic repository in the face of the large uncertainty that results for evaluations that extend over hundreds of thousands of years. This paper reviews the concept of the safety case as it has been defined by the international community. We contrast the safety case approach with that presently used in the U.S. repository program. Especially, we focus on the role of uncertainty quantification. There are inconsistencies between the initial proposal to dealing with uncertainties in a safety case and current U.S. practice. The paper seeks to better define the safety case concept so that it can be usefully applied to the regulatory framework of the U.S. repository program.

‘Backwards talk’ in Smith Island, Maryland

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-47
Author(s):  
Natalie Schilling
Keyword(s):  
Atlantic Coast ◽  
Critical Evaluation ◽  
Central Function ◽  
Smith Island ◽  
The Face ◽  
Nonliteral Language ◽  
Potential Loss ◽  
Community Continuity ◽  
The U.S

This article presents an exploration of the discourse-level phenomenon known as ‘backwards talk’ in Smith Island, a small, endangered dialect community in Maryland’s Chespaeake Bay, on the U.S. mid-Atlantic coast. The article examines how backwards talk, basically pervasive, highly creative irony, compares with irony more generally; how it patterns across generations and contexts; how important it is to island residents, who view backwards talk as the defining feature of their dialect; and why the feature has gained such importance in the face of dialect loss - and potential loss of community continuity as well. Because backwards talk is irony, it has important solidarity functions. As playful, nonliteral language, it serves as a symbol of the performed ‘islandness’ that islanders increasingly take up as they come into more and more contact with outsiders. Finally, as a means of offering critical evaluation of outsiders, backwards talk can be seen as a form of anti-language or counterlanguage, with a central function of resistance against outside forces.

Partial Validation of a Proposed Rating Methodology for Residential Fuel Cell Systems

2006 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark W. Davis ◽  
Michael W. Ellis ◽  
Brian P. Dougherty ◽  
A. Hunter Fanney
Keyword(s):  
Fuel Cell ◽  
Thermal Load ◽  
Electrical Power ◽  
Cell System ◽  
Hot Water ◽  
Electrical Load ◽  
Climate Data ◽  
Fuel Cell System ◽  
Cell Systems ◽  
Load Following

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), in conjunction with Virginia Tech, has developed a rating methodology for residential-scale stationary fuel cell systems. The methodology predicts the cumulative electrical production, thermal energy delivery, and fuel consumption on an annual basis. The annual performance is estimated by representing the entire year of climate and load data into representative winter, spring/fall, and summer days for six different U.S. climatic zones. It prescribes a minimal number of steady state and simulated use tests, which provide the necessary performance data for the calculation procedure that predicts the annual performance. The procedure accounts for the changes in performance resulting from changes in ambient temperature, electrical load, and, if the unit provides thermal as well as electrical power, thermal load. The rating methodology addresses four different types of fuel cell systems: grid-independent electrical load following, grid-connected constant power, grid-connected thermal load following, and grid-connected water heating. This paper will describe a partial validation of the rating methodology for a grid-connected thermal load following fuel cell system. The rating methodology was validated using measured data from tests that subjected the fuel cell system to domestic hot water and space heating thermal loads for each of the three representative days. The simplification of a full year’s load and climate data into three representative days was then validated by comparing the rating methodology predictions with the prediction of each hour over the full year in each of the six cities.

scholarly journals Indigenous Lessons about Sustainability Are Not Just for “All Humanity”

2018 ◽  
pp. 149-179 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kyle Whyte ◽  
Chris Caldwell ◽  
Marie Schaefer
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
The Sustainable Development ◽  
Indigenous Planning ◽  
The Face ◽  
Colonial Oppression ◽  
Planning Concepts ◽  
The U.S

Indigenous peoples are widely recognized as holding insights or lessons about how the rest of humanity can live sustainably or resiliently. Yet it is rarely acknowledged in many literatures that for Indigenous peoples living in the context of settler states such as the U.S. or New Zealand, our own efforts to sustain our peoples rest heavily on our capacities to resist settler colonial oppression. Indigenous planning refers to a set of concepts and practices through which many Indigenous peoples reflect critically on sustainability to derive lessons about what actions reinforce Indigenous self-determination and resist settler colonial oppression. The work of the Sustainable Development Institute of the College of Menominee Nation (SDI) is one case of Indigenous planning. In the context of SDI, we discuss Indigenous planning as a process of interpreting lessons from our own pasts and making practical plans for staging our own futures. If there are such things as Indigenous sustainability lessons for Indigenous peoples, they must be reliable planning concepts and processes we can use to support our continuance in the face of ongoing settler colonial oppression.

Dialectic of Contact

2018 ◽  
pp. 61-117
Author(s):  
Laura Harris
Keyword(s):  
Outer Edge ◽  
Popular Art ◽  
The Face ◽  
Conditions Of Possibility ◽  
The U.S

In this chapter I examine James’s and Oiticica’s entries into the U.S. and their attempts to situate themselves there. Cut off from the contact they had once had with this aesthetic sociality, contact that had radicalized their earlier work, they try to reconstruct the conditions of possibility for something like it in the U.S. They both imagine a kind of communion with the population at large, in communal modes of reception of popular art, but the opportunity for such reception is elusive, already lost or still anticipated, or only temporary, fleeting. In the face of this inconstancy, they work toward the construction of new apparatuses—the Correspondence organization and organ and living and working spaces called “nests”—in and through which they hoped to invite and structure contact, including contact with and between those forces they found most vital in the U.S., the disenfranchised, the marginal, the queer, the ones who precariously inhabit citizenship’s outer edge in modes of aesthetic sociality that were both severely constrained and unprecedentedly open. The new forms of aesthetic sociality James and Oiticica sought would take shape in and through new experimental practices that attempted to reformulate the very idea of work or working as their bases.

“Shut it down! Shut it down!”

2021 ◽  
pp. 22-40
Author(s):  
Jessica DuLong
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
New Jersey ◽  
Problem Solving ◽  
Coast Guard ◽  
Creative Problem Solving ◽  
Shared Purpose ◽  
Port Of New York ◽  
The Face ◽  
Creative Problem ◽  
The U.S

This chapter recounts how, in the face of the massive incident of 9/11, the shared purpose and common ties that connect mariners of all types ruled the day as the different agencies cooperated with civilian boat crews. As it turned out, the lack of a plan wound up setting the stage for creative problem solving and improvisation. Throughout that historic morning, the New York harbor community joined forces to carry out an unprecedented and remarkably successful evacuation effort. As the second attack hit, the U.S. Coast Guard shut down the Port of New York and New Jersey to commercial traffic. Other maritime forces, such as the marine fire company, were also kicked into action.

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