About:
Chiara Lo Prete is an associate professor of energy economics in the John and Willie Leone Family Department of Energy and Mineral Engineering at Penn State University. She is a John T. Ryan Jr. Faculty Fellow and a faculty member in the Intercollege Graduate Degree Program in Energy, Environmental, and Food Economics at Penn State. Since July 2021, she has been associate head of diversity, equity, and inclusion in the Leone Family Department of Energy and Mineral Engineering.
Her research centers on the economics of energy markets, focusing on the areas of competition and design of electricity markets, natural gas market design to enhance grid reliability, geopolitics and energy security, and the impacts of environmental regulations on electric power generation. She and her team develop mathematical models and apply empirical methods to study electricity market structures for resource adequacy and wind energy integration, interdependent natural gas and electric power systems, the weaponization of electricity trade, emission leakage and cross-product manipulation.
Before joining Penn State, Lo Prete was a Ziff Environmental Fellow at Harvard University. She earned a B.A. in economics (summa cum laude) from LUISS University, an M.A. in energy economics from the Scuola Mattei, and a M.S. and Ph.D. in geography and environmental engineering from The Johns Hopkins University.
For additional information on Lo Prete’s research, see her research map.
RECENTLY FUNDED PROJECTS:
SH2INE: Sustainable, Holistic Hydrogen INtegration Evaluation: models and analyses of human, environmental and policy dimensions. National Science Foundation. Role: PI. Total awarded: $999,628. Funded: September 01, 2024 – August 31, 2027. In collaboration with J. Dunn and K. Suiseeya, Northwestern University; Z. Guo, University of Central Florida, and H. Wiseman, Penn State.
SAI: Strengthening energy infrastructure resilience and equity during extreme cold weather events. National Science Foundation. Role: PI. Total awarded: $750,000. Funded: September 15, 2023 – August 31, 2026. In collaboration with A. Dubey, Washington State University; B. Ünel, Institute for Policy Integrity at NYU, and C. Mason, University of Wyoming.
CAREER: Capacity adequacy options for electricity markets with increasing renewable penetration: equilibrium models and laboratory experiments. National Science Foundation. Role: PI. Total awarded: $500,000. Funded: March 01, 2020 – February 28, 2025.
SELECTED PUBLICATIONS
- C. Lo Prete, K. Palmer and M. Robertson (2024). “Time for a market upgrade? A review of wholesale electricity market designs for the future”. Resources for the Future Report 24-09.
- S. Fang, A. M. Jaffe, T. Loch-Temzelides and C. Lo Prete (2024). “Electricity grids and geopolitical coercion: a game theoretic analysis of the synchronization of the Baltic states’ networks with continental Europe”. Energy Policy 188, 114068.
- C. Lo Prete, A. Tyagi and Q. Xu (2024). “California’s cap-and-trade program and emission leakage in the Western Interconnection: comparing econometric and partial equilibrium model estimates”. Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists 11(2), 359-402.
- C. Hohl, C. Lo Prete, A. Radhakrishnan and M. Webster (2023). “Intraday markets, wind integration and uplift in a regional U.S. power system”. Energy Policy 175, 113503.
- C. Lo Prete and A. Radhakrishnan (2023). “Leaker-follower equilibria to examine investment decisions in grid resilience-enhancing measures”. Risk Analysis 43, 280-307.
SELECTED WORK IN PROGRESS
- Grid reliability and competing claims for natural gas during winter storms, with A. Radhakrishnan and J. Wu.
- Electricity market structure, wind penetration and information aggregation: an experimental study, with A. Kwasnica, R. Rong, C. Hohl, and F. Zhu.
- National Science Foundation, Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award, 2020
- Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, Early Career Researcher Award, 2018