Welcome

I spend a lot of my time thinking about energy issues. For the last several years, I have been part of an international research group studying retail electric power markets. Much of our work centers around a large-scale competitive simulation of a retail market. Every year, we run a competition in which research groups from around the world build software “autonomous agents” that operate in this market, competing with each other to acquire customers, purchase the energy to serve their customers, and endeavor to balance their energy purchases with energy sales. The goal is to study the interactions among market design details, public policy ideas, competitive retailers, wholesale markets, and a variety of customer populations in a fairly realistic environment.

I also regularly participate in the annual Erasmus Energy Forum in Rotterdam. It is a unique gathering of energy executives, scientists, business professors, and government representatives focused on the future of the energy business.