Principal Investigator Namrata Kala
Most of today’s energy growth is occurring in developing countries. Assistant Professor Namrata Kala and Professor Christopher Knittel, both of whom focus on applied economics at the MIT Sloan School of Management, will use their grant to examine key policy levers for meeting electricity demand and renewable energy growth without jeopardizing system reliability in the developing world.
Kala and Knittel plan to design and run a randomized control trial in New Delhi, India, in collaboration with a large Indian power company. “We will estimate the willingness of firms to enroll in services that reduce peak consumption, and also promote energy efficiency,” says Kala, the W. Maurice Young (1961) Career Development Professor of Management. “Estimating the costs and benefits of such services, and their allocation across customers and electricity providers, can inform policies that promote energy efficiency in a cost-effective manner.”