Electric Utility Operational Cost and Emissions Management With Grid-Scale Energy Storage

2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chioke Harris ◽  
Michael E. Webber ◽  
Jeremy P. Meyers
Keyword(s):  
Energy Storage ◽  
Objective Function ◽  
Local Level ◽  
The United States ◽  
Electric Utility ◽  
Mixed Integer ◽  
Potential Cost ◽  
Solar Photovoltaics ◽  
Marginal Costs ◽  
The City

In the United States, installation of emission-free sources of power generation, such as wind and solar photovoltaics, has increased recently. Unfortunately, these generation technologies present unique challenges to utilities and grid operators because they are variable and not dispatchable. While energy storage can provide capacitance to the system and thereby make renewable power more dispatchable, storage implementation at the municipal scale is poorly understood. This paper examines future applications of energy storage to reduce costs and improve system reliability for electric utilities at the local level. The city of Austin, Texas was selected as the study area because the city has set aggressive targets of 30–35% of total electricity generation from renewable sources, primarily wind and solar photovoltaics, by 2020. For this analysis, generation assets currently used and those planned for future development by the local utility, Austin Energy, are treated in a unit commitment model using a mixed integer programming (MIP) approach. The model has been developed such that it can be provided any objective function and generation portfolio, and the results can be used by whatever stakeholder has generated those particular inputs. To best simulate operational dispatch conditions, the model includes ramp rate constraints, generator turn-on penalties, and minimum operation levels. Energy storage is included by allowing the model to assign an unconstrained asset throughout the study period, 24 hours, to whatever values will minimize the objective function. For this initial analysis, storage system efficiency, capital and marginal costs were not included, though they may significantly affect total allocated storage. Modeling results indicate that storage availability yields a reduction of as much as $600,000/day in marginal costs for the study area, based primarily on improved utilization of more efficient generating units. This result does not consider savings associated with NOx reductions. Such reductions were studied with a second objective function. While NOx reductions of approximately 9–23% were observed, these emission reductions were accompanied by significant increases in operating costs. Energy storage requirements and potential cost savings under the scenarios examined might be beneficial to researchers interested in grid-scale storage. These results can also be used to determine appropriate cost targets for storage researchers and manufacturers.

New Mayors: France and the United States

1987 ◽  
Vol 8 (x) ◽  
pp. 263-275
Author(s):  
Richard Balme ◽  
Jeanne Becquart-Leclercq ◽  
Terry N. Clark ◽  
Vincent Hoffmann-Martinot ◽  
Jean-Yves Nevers
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
Local Level ◽  
The United States ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Socialist Government ◽  
The University ◽  
The City ◽  
Significant Support ◽  
The Welfare State

In 1983 we organized a conference on “Questioning the Welfare State and the Rise of the City” at the University of Paris, Nanterre. About a hundred persons attended, including many French social scientists and political activists. Significant support came from the new French Socialist government. Yet with Socialism in power since 1981, it was clear that the old Socialist ideas were being questioned inside and outside the Party and government—especially in the important decentralization reforms. There was eager interest in better ways to deliver welfare state services at the local level.

scholarly journals The Economics of Policing and Public Safety

2021 ◽  
Vol 35 (4) ◽  
pp. 3-28
Author(s):  
Emily Owens ◽  
Bocar Ba
Keyword(s):  
Police Officers ◽  
Local Level ◽  
The United States ◽  
Relative Magnitude ◽  
Costs And Benefits ◽  
Police Departments ◽  
Indirect Benefits ◽  
Monitoring Strategies ◽  
Police Action ◽  
The City

The efficiency of any police action depends on the relative magnitude of its crime-reducing benefits and legitimacy costs. Policing strategies that are socially efficient at the city level may be harmful at the local level, because the distribution of direct costs and benefits of police actions that reduce victimization is not the same as the distribution of indirect benefits of feeling safe. In the United States, the local misallocation of police resources is disproportionately borne by Black and Hispanic individuals. Despite the complexity of this particular problem, the incentives facing both police departments and police officers tend to be structured as if the goals of policing were simple—to reduce crime by as much as possible. Formal data collection on the crime reducing-benefits of policing, and not the legitimacy costs, produce s further incentives to provide more engagement than may be efficient in any specific encounter, at both the officer and departmental level. There is currently little evidence as to what screening, training, or monitoring strategies are most effective at encouraging individual officers to balance the crime reducing benefits and legitimacy costs of their actions.

An esham-ijara structure in the United States?

2017 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 455-467 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Hummel ◽  
Blake Goud
Keyword(s):  
Local Governments ◽  
Risk Sharing ◽  
Local Economic Development ◽  
Local Level ◽  
The United States ◽  
Conventional Approach ◽  
Islamic Finance ◽  
Tax Increment Financing ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The City

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore Islamic borrowing at the local level in redevelopment authorities in the USA through an ijara and esham framework. Design/methodology/approach A hypothetical example is approached with a real redevelopment authority in the City of Pompano Beach, Florida. Actual data from past borrowing in a tax increment financing district are compared to an Islamic financing approach to test for competitiveness to a conventional approach. Findings It was found that when incorporating a crowdsourced option along with an ijara and esham approach, the returns on investment are higher than for a conventional approach. The risk is higher, but the returns are also higher which possibly increases the incentive to invest in these options. Research limitations This scenario is only hypothetical and based on many assumptions. A real-world application of the approach would have to be attempted to confidently determine its viability. Practical implications The potential competitiveness of this financing approach as well as its higher sustainability makes this a favorable approach for local redevelopment authorities to implement for needed money for infrastructure projects in blighted areas of the city. It is also of interest to Muslim countries that are devolving authority to their local governments. Originality/value This paper considers an alternative approach to tax increment financing which relies on a revenue sharing arrangement called an esham–ijara and esham–sukuk risk-sharing structure in Islamic financing terminology. There is currently very little discussion of esham in Islamic finance and no discussion of the application of Islamic finance to local economic development enterprises.

scholarly journals Future Policy Award 2018: The Good Food Purchasing Program, USA

2022 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paula Daniels ◽  
Alexa Delwiche
Keyword(s):  
Los Angeles ◽  
Environmental Sustainability ◽  
Food System ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Well Being ◽  
The United States ◽  
Local Economies ◽  
Food Purchasing ◽  
The City ◽  
Good Food

Adopted first by the City of Los Angeles in 2012, the Good Food Purchasing Program® creates a transparent supply chain and helps institutions to measure and then make shifts in their food purchases. It is the first procurement model to support five food system values—local economies, environmental sustainability, valued workforce, animal welfare and nutrition—in equal measure and thereby encourages myriad organizations to come together to engage for shared goals. Within just six years, the Good Food Purchasing Program has catalyzed a nationwide movement to establish similar policies in localities small and large across the United States, and inspired the creation of the Center for Good Food Purchasing. First adopted by the City of Los Angeles in 2012, it is a procurement standard that offers institutions a system in which current investments toward food are redirected toward more sustainable and fair suppliers. It uses a metric-based, flexible framework that produces a star rating. The Good Food Purchasing Program promotes the purchase of more sustainably produced food, from local economies, especially smaller and mid-sized farms and other food processing operations, which results in production returns at a more regional and local level, and ensures that suppliers' workers are offered safe and healthy working conditions and fair compensation, that livestock receives healthy and humane care, and that consumers—foremost school children, patients, the elderly—enjoy better health and well-being as a result of higher quality nutritious meals. This article will detail its implementation since 2012, provide current information on the impacts the Program has had on the agroecology of regions in the US food system, and recommendations for policy changes that could catalyze more accelerated impact.

Death in the City

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kathryn A. Sloan
Keyword(s):  
Scientific Inquiry ◽  
The United States ◽  
Violent Death ◽  
Special Relationship ◽  
Intimate Friend ◽  
Counter Narrative ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
European Heritage ◽  
The City ◽  
The Temple

Popular culture has long conflated Mexico with the macabre. Some persuasive intellectuals argue that Mexicans have a special relationship with death, formed in the crucible of their hybrid Aztec-European heritage. Death is their intimate friend; death is mocked and accepted with irony and fatalistic abandon. The commonplace nature of death desensitizes Mexicans to suffering. Death, simply put, defines Mexico. There must have been historical actors who looked away from human misery, but to essentialize a diverse group of people as possessing a unique death cult delights those who want to see the exotic in Mexico or distinguish that society from its peers. Examining tragic and untimely death—namely self-annihilation—reveals a counter narrative. What could be more chilling than suicide, especially the violent death of the young? What desperation or madness pushed the victim to raise the gun to the temple or slip the noose around the neck? A close examination of a wide range of twentieth-century historical documents proves that Mexicans did not accept death with a cavalier chuckle nor develop a unique death cult, for that matter. Quite the reverse, Mexicans behaved just as their contemporaries did in Austria, France, England, and the United States. They devoted scientific inquiry to the malady and mourned the loss of each life to suicide.

Bringing the Real World of Science to Children: A Partnership of the American Museum of Natural History and the City University of New York

2008 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Anthony G Picciano ◽  
Robert V. Steiner
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
New York ◽  
Natural History ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
Compulsory Education ◽  
Development Program ◽  
The United States ◽  
American Museum ◽  
The World ◽  
The City

Every child has a right to an education. In the United States, the issue is not necessarily about access to a school but access to a quality education. With strict compulsory education laws, more than 50 million students enrolled in primary and secondary schools, and billions of dollars spent annually on public and private education, American children surely have access to buildings and classrooms. However, because of a complex and competitive system of shared policymaking among national, state, and local governments, not all schools are created equal nor are equal education opportunities available for the poor, minorities, and underprivileged. One manifestation of this inequity is the lack of qualified teachers in many urban and rural schools to teach certain subjects such as science, mathematics, and technology. The purpose of this article is to describe a partnership model between two major institutions (The American Museum of Natural History and The City University of New York) and the program designed to improve the way teachers are trained and children are taught and introduced to the world of science. These two institutions have partnered on various projects over the years to expand educational opportunity especially in the teaching of science. One of the more successful projects is Seminars on Science (SoS), an online teacher education and professional development program, that connects teachers across the United States and around the world to cutting-edge research and provides them with powerful classroom resources. This article provides the institutional perspectives, the challenges and the strategies that fostered this partnership.

Improved Oxygen Dissolution Control for Oxygen Activated Sludge

1988 ◽  
Vol 20 (4-5) ◽  
pp. 101-108 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. C. Clifft ◽  
M. T. Garrett
Keyword(s):  
Activated Sludge ◽  
Control Method ◽  
Control Strategies ◽  
Cost Savings ◽  
Utilization Efficiency ◽  
Oxygen Production ◽  
Oxygen Utilization ◽  
Potential Cost ◽  
Oxygen Dissolution ◽  
The City

Now that oxygen production facilities can be controlled to match the requirements of the dissolution system, improved oxygen dissolution control can result in significant cost savings for oxygen activated sludge plants. This paper examines the potential cost savings of the vacuum exhaust control (VEC) strategy for the City of Houston, Texas 69th Street Treatment Complex. The VEC strategy involves operating a closed-tank reactor slightly below atmospheric pressure and using an exhaust apparatus to remove gas from the last stage of the reactor. Computer simulations for one carbonaceous reactor at the 69th Street Complex are presented for the VEC and conventional control strategies. At 80% of design loading the VEC strategy was found to provide an oxygen utilization efficiency of 94.9% as compared to 77.0% for the conventional control method. At design capacity the oxygen utilization efficiency for VEC and conventional control was found to be 92.3% and 79.5%, respectively. Based on the expected turn-down capability of Houston's oxygen production faciilities, the simulations indicate that the VEC strategy will more than double the possible cost savings of the conventional control method.

scholarly journals Optimal Placement and Sizing of D-STATCOM in Radial and Meshed Distribution Networks Using a Discrete-Continuous Version of the Genetic Algorithm

Electronics ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (12) ◽  
pp. 1452
Author(s):  
Cristian Mateo Castiblanco-Pérez ◽  
David Esteban Toro-Rodríguez ◽  
Oscar Danilo Montoya ◽  
Diego Armando Giral-Ramírez
Keyword(s):  
Genetic Algorithm ◽  
Objective Function ◽  
Programming Model ◽  
Distribution Networks ◽  
Optimization Method ◽  
Optimal Placement ◽  
Mixed Integer ◽  
Power Balance ◽  
Continuous Version ◽  
Discrete Part

In this paper, we propose a new discrete-continuous codification of the Chu–Beasley genetic algorithm to address the optimal placement and sizing problem of the distribution static compensators (D-STATCOM) in electrical distribution grids. The discrete part of the codification determines the nodes where D-STATCOM will be installed. The continuous part of the codification regulates their sizes. The objective function considered in this study is the minimization of the annual operative costs regarding energy losses and installation investments in D-STATCOM. This objective function is subject to the classical power balance constraints and devices’ capabilities. The proposed discrete-continuous version of the genetic algorithm solves the mixed-integer non-linear programming model that the classical power balance generates. Numerical validations in the 33 test feeder with radial and meshed configurations show that the proposed approach effectively minimizes the annual operating costs of the grid. In addition, the GAMS software compares the results of the proposed optimization method, which allows demonstrating its efficiency and robustness.

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