esr.org.nz

Dr Susan Krumdieck

Provision of electricity started out as a public service, with public investment, open access, and relatively low unit cost for end users.  The era of privatisation turned over the purpose of power provision to profit-making.  Is this a problem?  Aren’t all things better if provided by a competitive market?  The lecture could go for well over 50 minutes discussing the problems with the current electricity market system, but it will not.  The lecture will instead put forward a “sustainability” design for an electric power system, and the market structures that a sustainable system would work under.  The sustainability approach shatters the entrenched mythologies that put public good and private profit at odds, and instead illustrates the constructive synergies.
Dr Krumdieck is an Associate Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Canterbury.
Date: 25 August 2009, 7.00 pm
Venue: University of Canterbury, School of Engineering Lecture Room 1 (in the Mushroom).
This lecture will be open to anyone interested and members are encouraged to publicise it among friends and collegues.