| dc.description.abstract | Renewable energy sources such as solar and wind hold the potential
for providing a significant portion of the U.S. energy requirements in
the decades ahead. Unlike other energy sources their availability is
determined by nonrandom events beyond the control of the consumer. In
addition, macro-, meso-, and microclimatic conditions play a major role
in determining the worth of such renewable energy sources to their
owners. The worth of these new technologies will be a function of owner,
location, and application as well as the traditional capital and
operating cost, i.e., their worth to an owner in the southwest will be
different form that to an owner in the northeast or the southeast.
Dealing with energy sources, with geographic and sectorally specific
energy values and with energy technologies with which we have little or
no experience in the marketplace has created a set of challenges in
analysis and modeling of these new technologies in competition with
traditional energy technologies and with other emerging technologies.
This paper will look at one simulation methodology for estimating the
worth of renewable energy systems providing electricity, such as wind or
solar photovoltaic power systems, and will discuss the interaction
between such systems and traditional electric utilities with which they
may or may not be integrated, be owned or be co-located. The paper
concludes with a discussion of the issues associated with the
incorporation of econometric techniques into such a simulation modeling
structure. | en |
