In this episode, host Kristin Hayes talks with Professor Steve Cicala of the University of Chicago’s Harris School of Public Policy (soon to be moving to Tufts University’s Department of Economics). Expounding on research recently highlighted in the New York Times, in which he undertook one of the earliest looks at electricity demand during the peak of the pandemic lockdowns in the United States, Cicala details how electricity demand can serve as a valuable—if incomplete—tool to assess the health of the economy and the outlook for recovering from a recession. Cicala notes that the current crisis has shifted renewable penetration and affected energy consumption, but researchers remain uncertain about the duration of the pandemic and its long-term impacts on the electric grid.
Via Resources Radio