Seth Blumsack, professor of energy and environmental economics and international affairs, was awarded a $1,193,307 grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation to sustain and expand an interdisciplinary research network focused on the regional organizations that manage the electric power transmission grid in the United States and how the governance of these regional transmission organizations (RTOs) impacts outcomes for market efficiency, sustainability, equity, reliability, and resilience.
The three-year grant will be used to expand the research network’s size and scope. Research previously focused primarily on electricity markets and will be expanded to encompass other infrastructure governance issues critical to sustainable energy system transition, including transmission planning and investment and resilience of the grid to major disruptions.
“While there is a strong body of research on RTOs since their inception in 1996, there is an increasing urgency to decarbonize the grid, as well as an increased interest in resiliency to face events brought about by climate change like the Texas winter crisis in 2021,” said Blumsack. “Understanding how RTOs interact with external interests, or who is in the room when they make critical decisions, is important because even a small difference in process can lead to a big difference in outcomes.”
Blumsack, who also co-directs Penn State’s Center for Energy Law and Policy, emphasized the layers of complexity, from the technological engineering feat of the electric grid to market dynamics and changing environmental factors, make analyzing RTOs a unique challenge that requires a collaborative network of researchers. In the coming three years, Blumsack seeks to double the number of researchers with a focus on studying the social impact and equity of the grid, a perspective that historically has often gone overlooked.