Lynne Holt

The Changing Electric System Architecture

Most electric utilities still rely on “dumb grid” technology to meet and manage load. Yet the passage of the federal Energy Policy Act of 2005 and the 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act (EISA) has provided greater visibility for smart meters, an essential component of smart grid systems. Increasing federal support through the provision of

Mechanisms to Mitigate Regulatory Risk in Private Infrastructure Investment: A Survey of the Literature

4 billion in matching fund grants from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Stimulus Act) is expected to further smart grid development, as well as smart grid storage, monitoring, and technology viability. Despite the attention it has received to date, the term “smart grid” remains nebulous. While most market participants have a clear vision of what “smart grid” means to them, any three people are unlikely to have the same vision. For our purposes, we refer to “smart grid” as an electric transmission and distribution system where two-way communication exists between the source and the sink for the electricity.

Broadband and Contributions to Economic Growth: The U.S. Experience and Future Direction

There are three basic approaches to mitigating this risk; namely, institutional instruments that limit the possibility of government opportunism, financial instruments that decrease financial risk, and investment strategies, such as choosing technologies that may not be cost-minimizing but that have lower “sunk” costs than more traditional alternatives. In this paper, we summarize the literature on the first two options. We include energy, telecommunications, water, and transport in the term “infrastructure.”

Broadband and contributions to economic growth: Lessons from the US experience

There are many ways of examining how broadband relates to economic development. One that comes to mind is a country‘s global competitiveness. An index for measuring such competitiveness, the Global Competitiveness Index, ranks business competitiveness across 127 countries with the U.S. ranked first in 2007-2008 (Schwab and Porter 2007). The index‘s treatment of competitiveness is not confined to technology: technological readiness is one of 12 attributes (called pillars) of a country‘s relative competitiveness. If we want to better understand the effects of information communications technology (ICT), including broadband, on economic growth and productivity, we might consider the broader context in which ICT is deployed and the conditions under which it has most effectively contributed to economic growth. The measure for economic development, as used in the Global Competitiveness Index, is Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita, adjusted for purchasing power parity because it is considered the most comprehensive measure of national economic activity and is strongly correlated to a nation‘s living standard over time (Schwab and Porter 2007).