Governance Institutions for a Polycentric and Technologically Complex Electric Power Grid

 Over the past two decades, the electricity industry has transformed due to advances in renewable energy technologies, decentralized energy systems, and increased digitalization. These technological advances, in the name of a more efficient, reliable and sustainable power delivery system, have expanded the number and scope of market actors and have the potential to change regulatory models and the utility business models. These changes pose operational and financial challenges for regulated utilities and governance challenges for both the utilities and regional transmission organizations (RTOs) that manage transmission grids and wholesale power markets. 

This meeting is motivated by the fundamental question of what good governance systems look like for the electric power grid. This particular meeting is designed to gather an interdisciplinary group of experts to examine the challenges to governance institutions in this setting from perspectives informed by complexity science and analyses of evolutionary dynamics. In particular, we are interested in analyzing grid governance taking into account concepts like institutional fitness with changing landscape, and how layered nonlinear systems can result in non-deterministic outcomes.