Energy Research at Tulane
The Tulane Energy Institute coordinates energy research at Tulane University and involves faculty from business, economics, engineering, and the environmental sciences. Energy Institute personnel work closely with sponsoring agencies and corporations to execute projects that are both rigorous and relevant. Sponsoring entities include the Department of Energy, the National Science Foundation, the Louisiana Economic Development Agency, and multiple corporations including major funding from the Entergy Corporation.
The Tulane Energy Institute is a charter member of Louisiana's Clean Power and Energy Research Consortium (CPERC). CPERC members address critical scientific, engineering, and economic issues associated with power and energy generation and related areas.
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On-Going Research (partial list)
Productivity and Technological Change in Shale Gas Production: An Econometric Analysis of Well Data from the Haynesville Shale - Seabron Adamson & Geoff Parker
The production of natural gas from previously uneconomic shale formations through the use of horizontal drilling and hydro-fracturing techniques has transformed the American natural gas industry. Recently the Haynesville shale play, located primarily in northwest Louisiana, surpassed the Barnett shale as the leading shale production region in the United States, despite the fact that commercial production in the Barnett began much earlier. Haynesville shale production is now exceeding 5.5 billion cubic feet per day (bcf/d), meeting over 8% of average national annual daily gas consumption, despite having started large-scale commercial production only about three years ago. Wells with reported 30-day initial production (IP) rates greater than 8 million cubic per day (mmcf/d) and estimated ultimate recovery (EUR) of greater than 6 bcf are now common.
Quality of Service (QoS)-Based Capacity Subscription - Xiaoyue Jiang
At the retail level, we propose an LSE managed capacity subscription mechanism to enable and to price QoS-based demand management. As a load aggregator, LSE is at the core of QoS management. Under the proposed capacity market mechanism, LSE promises to the system operator a certain level of QoS. The QoS obligation made at the wholesale level have to be passed down to end customers in an effective and fair manner.
Capacity Market for Renewable Integration - Xiaoyue Jiang & Anjali Sheffrin
A forward capacity market mechanism is being developed to establish an appropriate economic framework for renewable integration and for smart-grid innovations. By recognizing the negative effects of volatility from both supply and demand sides, which are particularly significant for renewable sources, we suggest that the generating capacity should be traded at two quality-of-services (QoS) levels: guaranteed capacity and best-effort capacity. The best-effort capacity resolves the "missing money" problem, consequently attracts investment on new capacity; the guaranteed capacity is crucial for the maintaining system reliability in face of growing penetration of intermittent and non-dispatchable (thus highly volatile) renewable sources.
Stochastic Modeling of Distributed Energy Resources (DER) - Ekundayo Shittu
We develop an engineering-economic optimization model of DER taking into consideration the uncertainties inherent in the demand and supply sources. Running a optimal schedule of the resources to meeting load is important in understanding the reliability of the system given the shift to deregulation.
Quality of Service (QoS)-Based Capacity Subscription - Xiaoyue Jiang
At the retail level, we propose an LSE managed capacity subscription mechanism to enable and to price QoS-based demand management. As a load aggregator, LSE is at the core of QoS management. Under the proposed capacity market mechanism, LSE promises to the system operator a certain level of QoS. The QoS obligation made at the wholesale level have to be passed down to end customers in an effective and fair manner.
The Smart Grid as an Innovation Platform - Geoff Parker
Before the vision of a robust smart grid platform market is realized, markets must be carefully designed to promote access and participation. Much can be learned from both the successes and failures of other platform markets. Critical issues include rights to control core engineering standards, intellectual property, information, and evolution. Until these issues are carefully resolved, a large-scale system rollout may be premature. The technology providers are moving rapidly to deployment and the time is now for the economic and regulatory frameworks to catch up.
Market Structure, Policy and Energy Technology - Ekundayo Shittu
We study firms' incentives to invest in a portfolio of energy technologies under different market structures and environmental policy instruments. We pay important attention to the representation of the technologies in the portfolio due to their different and crucial implications not just for policy, but also for the underlying market structure. We model the energy technologies to capture their exact impacts on the marginal costs of pollution abatement.
Market Value and the Design of Environmental Policy - Ekundayo Shittu
We investigate the linkages between environmental performance and the market or economic indices of a firm. The correlation between the responsiveness of a firm to environmental metrics and the underlying market platform of the firm is crucial to understanding the influence of financial markets on the enforcement of environmental policy and to designing more efficient regulations. We demonstrate that the regulator can achieve a two-fold objective of firm emissions reduction and firm monitoring for compliance with the use of market-driven enforcements.
Louisiana Industrial Power Market Study - Anjali Sheffrin, Geoff Parker, and Eric Smith
The chemical and refinery sectors of the Louisiana economy have a large installed base of combined heat and power (CHP) electric generation capacity to support plant operations. A current survey shows installed industrial generation capacity in excess of 7 GW, comprising nearly 30% of the total installed capacity in Louisiana. Although underutilized, much of this capacity is highly efficient and could help to serve the needs of Louisiana consumers when not being directly consumed by industrial processes. However, there is concern that Louisiana's industrial power market design is preventing this industrial generation capacity from being used in the most effective economic and environmentally efficient manner.
Forecasting Renewable Energy Production - Anjali Sheffrin and Dmitry Kurochkin
We are formulating and testing new techniques in forecasting techniques for solar and wind energy. We have received 1 minute wind and solar data for 2007. 2008, 2009 from the CAISO. We have contacted the CAISO on the possibility of testing our formulation with the techniques currently in use by the ISO. The plan is to formulate a partnership with the CAISO, where we can test our forecasting techniques and advance them with appropriate feedback. The CAISO will attempt to find a research lab (such as NREL) to formulate and perhaps fund our experiment.
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Last Updated 8/8/11
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