This course develops a foundation of economic principles for the electric utility on the topics of regulation, planning, and operation. Topics covered in regulation include cost of capital, calculation of the revenue requirement, and rate design. Topics covered in planning include generation costs (fixed and variable), reliability, marginal costs, and cost-effectiveness. Topics covered in operations include least-cost dispatch and energy markets. The course is geared toward emerging electricity sector topics including renewable energy, distributed energy resources, energy storage, and clean firm resources. The course also covers the history of the U.S. electricity sector and its evolution to the current technical and regulatory structure with the goal that economic principles can be used to achieve a system that is both economically efficient and environmentally sustainable.
3 units · Letter or Credit/No Credit
This course develops a foundation of economic principles for the electric utility on the topics of regulation, planning, and operation. Topics covered in regulation include cost of capital, calculation of the revenue requirement, and rate design. Topics covered in planning include generation costs (fixed and variable), reliability, marginal costs, and cost-effectiveness. Topics covered in operations include least-cost dispatch and energy markets. The course is geared toward emerging electricity sector topics including renewable energy, distributed energy resources, energy storage, and clean firm resources. The course also covers the history of the U.S. electricity sector and its evolution to the current technical and regulatory structure with the goal that economic principles can be used to achieve a system that is both economically efficient and environmentally sustainable.
Offered in Winter 2026 at Stanford University.