Smart Grid, Distributed Generation, Demand Response

Catalog description

This course explores the challenges and opportunities that come with new policies seeking to promote distributed (decentralized) sources of energy and “demand response” (“DR”), strategies by which end-use customers reduce consumption of electricity. We will also look at the “Smart Grid,” the revolutionary transformation of consumers’ relationship with the electric grid in which customers with “smart” electric meters can have increased control over their electricity usage. The course takes an intensive look at legal developments and the effectiveness of various policy instruments in state, regional, national, and international forums where this evolving body of law is being made. We will cover mandates and goals for distributed renewable energy (including renewable portfolio standards and feed-in tariffs); federal, state, and local demand response laws, including their relationship to the Smart Grid; state and federal tax and other incentives for demand response and renewables; ratemaking, wholesale markets and other aspects of the sale of electricity; and financing mechanisms for transactions involving efficiency and renewables.