Browsing by Subject "Electric"

Now showing 1 - 3 of 3
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    ANALYSIS OF THE MICROGRID MARKET FOR SMALL AND MEDIUM-SIZED MUNICIPALITIES AND ELECTRIC COOPERATIVES
    (2021-04-30) Hancock, Thomas; Hu, Yuxin; Yang, Yueyi
    A growing number of electricity users ranging from large production facilities to homeowners are installing microgrids to increase the resilience and reliability of their power supply. While this growth has largely been driven by private entities, microgrids also offer municipal utilities, rural cooperatives, and local governments a means to provide improved services to their constituents, provided the costs can be appropriately controlled. In this project, we investigate the market potential for microgrid adoption by small and medium-sized municipalities and electric cooperatives. Insights around this market segment are drawn from semi-structured interviews with representatives from not only municipalities and electric cooperatives, but also major utilities, local government regulatory agencies, and microgrid experts. The findings from these discussions indicate that municipal utilities have potential to be a healthy market for microgrids as they avoid conflicts with monopoly distribution companies and their government affiliation provides an opportunity to improve community resilience. To accelerate microgrid deployment in this sector, a framework is developed for assessing the viability of microgrid adoption for municipalities and cooperatives. This framework is also used to identify a list of representative utilities that demonstrate the key characteristics of this market segment.
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    Assessing the Outcomes of a Long-term, Zero-emission Strategy for GoTriangle’s Transit Fleet
    (2019-04-19) Floum, Jackson; Fu, Yingyu; Yoshizumi, Alexander; Zhang, Liyue
    The goal of this project was to assess how GoTriangle might most effectively implement battery electric vehicle (BEV) buses by analyzing possible environmental and social factors and providing recommendations for BEV bus implementation to maximize operating efficiency and social good. The core questions that drove the analyses were (1) whether GoTriangle is a good candidate for BEV bus implementation and (2) how GoTriangle might best implement BEV buses. Four analytical components were chosen to address the goals of the project based on participatory feedback from project clients: (1) analysis of potential grid impacts of charging the electric fleet, (2) comparisons between BEV bus well-to-wheel emissions and conventional diesel bus well-to-wheel emissions, (3) suitability analysis of route legs – the most granular transportation planning units used by GoTriangle, and (4) spatial analysis of emissions to address environmental health and environmental justice concerns. This report found that GoTriangle is likely a good candidate for BEV bus implementation. Increased demand to the grid would likely be negligible from a transmission point-of-view. In maximum fuel-economy scenarios with an energy mix based upon Duke Energy’s integrated resource plan, it appeared that BEV buses would contribute less emissions in every category when compared to diesel buses. Though, it should be said that comparatively larger contributions of some air pollutants were observed in minimum fuel-economy scenarios. Many bus route legs – the smallest planning units used in route optimization – appeared to be good candidates for implementation based on physical characteristics known to be associated with energy consumption. Route legs located near and around Raleigh were found to be some of the most optimal options based on their physical properties and comparatively greater potential to mitigate human exposure to criteria pollutants.
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    Explaining Merger and Acquisition Premiums in the U.S. Electric and Natural Gas Sectors in a Period of Deregulation from 1990-2012
    (2013-04-17) Marks, Jonathan
    This study aims to explain the variance in premiums, or the price paid for a target firm’s equity above its market value, in mergers and acquisitions with natural gas and electric target firms from 1990-2012, a period characterized by industry deregulation. Using a sample of 130 transactions, we test factors that have been shown to be related to premiums in general merger and acquisition studies as well as theorize and test new explanations for premium sizes. We find that premiums offered in our sample of natural gas and electric merger and acquisition transactions are smaller for stock transactions, are positively related to the ratio of acquirer to target firm size, and are negatively related to the percentage of target firm revenue derived from electric operations.