Modeling daily and weekly cycles of hourly electricity loads under various assumptions of error structure

Provide better point and interval load forecasts at short horizons

Costs and Benefits of Alternative Energies

This research is designed to take some of the speculation out of alternative energy research and investment questions. Ultimately, the models developed will be combined with climate change models to explore how energy investment decisions balance against the potential damages from climate change.

Electricity Market Design

Professor Baker is working with ISO-New England and the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) to extend an agent-based simulator that will allow ISO-New England to test new market rules and designs before they are implemented in New England’s wholesale market for electricity, which is worth seven billion dollars annually. We will develop new agents combining information theory, game-theoretic models, economic reasoning, and operations research techniques. This work will be the first step in a program to improve agent-based models of electricity markets.

Energy Choices and Sustainability

Professor Baker is working with the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission to advance efforts to achieve sustainability in the Pioneer Valley region of western Massachusetts, and serve as a model that can be applied in other regions of the country. They are designing an interactive simulation tool to support decision making about energy investments and improvements. This project is important because a great deal of science and technology exists for making sustainable decisions, but many decision makers – those in a position to implement actions – do not have the information or the decision tools available to make informed decisions. In particular, decision makers have a difficult time employing scientific information and accounting for uncertainty.

Economics of Distributed Energy Generation

This approach has applications for analyzing the institutional barriers to adoption of environmentally benign distributed energy generation technologies.

Interplay between energy and development in Africa

Energy generation and economic development are inextricably linked. Deeper understanding of this interplay may be applied to the creation of sustainable economic growth strategies for African nations.

New Product Forecasting

Forecasting can be used to predict likely technology adoption rates for consumers and businesses to further assist production scheduling and new product development planning.

Market segmentation

Market segmentation methods can be used to define different groups of buyers [whether industrial or consumer], and what they respond to most (price versus convenience for example).

Utilization of Market Information During New Product Development

Techniques to study the economic and technical expectations [among consumers] of cutting edge renewable technologies. Capturing these expectations and concerns in a rigorous way is important for marketing theory, and helps reduce development time-to-market while simultaneously enhancing new product market appeal.

Utilization of local forest products

Assessment of available biomass resources for energy production.

Sustainable business

Environmentally responsible behavior

Emmissions trading enforcement

Enforcement strategy applications for managing local environmental resources

Non-market valuation tecniques

Natural resource extraction cost:benefit analyses

Design and experimental evaluation of incentive-based pollution control policies

Using economic experiments to examine compliance behavior under alternative enforcement strategies and designs of environmental policies, including emissions trading programs.