Using a Nexus Award, the Ralph O’Connor Sustainable Energy Institute (ROSEI) will facilitate events at 555 Penn Avenue (555 Penn) aimed at bringing together industry experts, regulators, researchers, and other stakeholders to discuss ways to create efficient and reliable power markets to support decarbonization efforts.
The university’s Nexus Awards program supports university faculty collaborating on bold interdisciplinary innovations connected to research and programming to be conducted at 555 Penn, Johns Hopkins’ new center in Washington, D.C.
555 Penn Avenue
ROSEI’s proposal, submitted by the Future Power Markets Forum (FPMF), was among 40 wide-ranging projects and programs selected to receive support late last month. FPMF is a collaborative project between ROSEI, Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy, and Grid Strategies, LLC. Ben Hobbs, ROSEI core faculty member from the Department of Environmental Health & Engineering as well as chair of the market surveillance committee for the California power market, is one of FPMF’s founders. FPMF’s main goal is to facilitate discussions among practitioners, experts, and regulators to find practical solutions for designing power markets.
“This is a big step for ROSEI,” Hobbs said. “By sponsoring FPMF’s future events at 555 Penn, the institute will promote constructive discussions among key private and public sector stakeholders concerning market designs that promote cost-effective and equitable decarbonization of the power sector, and by disseminating their conclusions as well as analyses underpinning those discussions.”
FPMF will host up to five events—including closed meetings with electricity market leaders and open public meetings—at 555 in the upcoming fiscal year, beginning in early 2024. Some possible topics for the first meeting include:
- Assuring “resource adequacy” by incentivizing investment in the right types of generation, storage, and demand management in the right places at the right times
- Resolving the present inconsistencies in market incentives for installing and operating grid-scale versus distributed energy resources
- Fostering incentives to build needed transmission infrastructure where it would provide the most reliability, cost savings, and emissions reductions
Hobbs is looking forward to the opportunity to bring a variety of experts and stakeholders together in person at 555 Penn for these events. (Since FPMF’s founding in June 2020, all except one of its 2 7 meetings has been held virtually.)
“Informal discussions between talks and over food, as well as structured small-group discussions, greatly magnify the impact of formal presentations.,” Hobbs said. “The 555 Penn facility, together with the post-COVID opportunities for in-person interactions among policymakers and stakeholders, presents an extraordinary opportunity to amplify the impact of these ideas upon the future of the electric power industry. It will also firmly plant JHU, ROSEI, Columbia, and the FPMF in the center of Washington energy policy discussions and debates.”
Other ROSEI faculty members involved in FPMF include Mahdi Mehrtash, an assistant research professor in JHU’s Department of Environmental Health and Engineering; Jonas Nahm, an assistant professor of energy, natural resources and environment at the School of Advanced International Studies; and Yury Dvorkin, an associate professor of electrical & computer engineering and civil & systems engineering at the Whiting School of Engineering.