Sepehr Ramyar is a Ph.D. candidate in Technology Management program at the Jack Baskin School of Engineering of University of California Santa Cruz. His research focuses on analysis of electricity markets from a game-theoretic perspective. Particularly, he studies how the increasing integration of DERs (distributed energy resources) and “prosumers” can impact outcomes of power markets. He is also interested in mechnanism design and how to improve market efficiencies through interventions and market design.
Research areas: Power Markets, Game Theory, Mechanism Design
A Power Market Model in Presence of Strategic Prosumers IEEE Transactions on Power System, 35(2): 898-908, 2020. (doi.org10.1109TPWRS.2019.2937887)
Leader-Follower Equilibria in Presence of Strategic and Risk-Averse Prosumers: A Distributionally Robust Chance-Constrained MPEC Approach
Fargol Nematkhah is a Ph.D. student at the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department of the Jack Baskin School of Engineering, University of California Santa Cruz. Her research involves leveraging flexible loads such as heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems and electric vehicles (EVs) to tackle the real-time power imbalances induced by distributed energy resources (DERs) in a market-based environment. Moreover, she is interested in studying novel platforms such as the blockchain technology for real-time energy transactions as well as the behavior of prosumers in such platforms using machine learning techniques.
Research areas: Energy transactions, EV, HVAC, Blockchain, Machine learning
Exploiting the Potentials of HVAC Systems in Transactive Energy Markets IEEE Transactions on Smart Grid, 12(5): 4039-4048, 2021. (doi.org10.1109TSG.2021.3078655)
Siyu Luo is a Ph.D. student in Environmental Studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz. She holds a MA in Public Affairs from The University of Texas at Austin. She is passionate about renewable energy and water resource policies and management. Engaging policy evaluation modeling, economics and science.
Research areas: the impact of DERs (distributed energy resources) usages in the agriculture sector on water resources management
Duan Zhang earned her Ph.D. degree from Technology Management program at the Jack Baskin School of Engineering of University of California Santa Cruz. Her current research interests lie in studying the impact of public policies on energy sector using quantitative methods.
Research area: Energy market modeling and planning, energy economics, energy policies
Her current research contains two main themes.
The first theme involves examining two types of carbon emission trading programs considered under the federal Clean Power Plan: a mass-based cap-and-trade (C&T) program, and a performance-based trading program. I examine the theoretical properties of the performance-based policy and compares its market performance to a traditional mass-based C&T program using bottom-up simulation models that account for transmission and technology heterogeneity.
The second theme entails developing a top-down computable general equilibrium (CGE) model with bilateral commodity trade flow to investigate the regional economic impacts of climate-change-induced extreme weather events, such as sea level rise and wildfire, with a focus on natural gas sector in the northern California region. The top-down model allows for assessing the general equilibrium effects of climate change and understand the spill-over effects of natural gas service disruption.
Carbon Emissions Forensic in Energy Sector: Is It Worth the Effort? Energy Policy. 128: 868-878,(2019) . (doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2019.01.050)
On the Effectiveness of Tradable Performance-based Standards, Energy Economics, 74: 456-469, (2018). (doi.org/10.1016/j.eneco.2018.06.012)
Verena Viskvic (Bloomberg)
Leilei Zhang (FICO)
Chi-chung Tsao (California Environmental Protection Agency)
Rudy Maltos (Ph.D program; Colorado School of Mines)