Power Transformation Lab

Effects of escalating trade barriers on the U.S. energy system

2026-08-27T00:00:00+00:00

Trade barriers are growing in the U.S. and globally, representing a secular trend away from a liberal global trading regime toward a bifurcated system with heterogeneous rules and regional trade agreements [1]. New trade barriers are driven by a range of concerns, including concentrations of risky foreign producers, supply chain disruptions, unfair trade practices including subsidies and labor and environmental standards, and declining domestic manufacturing, employment and technological capabilities. Fossil energy trade and its potential disruptions have long been a concern of policymakers. However, the current context in which the U.S. administration has advanced a more expansive role for tariffs, alternative energy technology globally is outpacing growth in fossil fuels, and China dominates clean energy supply chains have broadened the scope and impact of energy trade measures.

Open Access Article

Recommended citation:

Davidson, M. R. (2026). Effects of escalating trade barriers on the U.S. energy system. Environmental Research Letters, 21(16), 161004. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ae97f8

Power Lab member wins awards at DTU Power & Energy Systems Summer School and Electrochemical Society Meeting

2026-06-16T00:00:00+00:00

Power Lab member Jenny Nicolas attended the 2026 DTU Power & Energy Systems (PES) Summer School from May 18–22 in Copenhagen, Denmark. The PES Summer School covered topics such as electricity market design, power system stability, and energy communities, among others. There was a large focus on leveraging AI-based methods to enhance energy system reliability and security.

Jenny presented her research poster “Socio-Political Factors Driving Solar Deployment: Streamlining US Energy Planning” and won the award for best poster. The prize: Jenny was added to the workshop agenda to give a talk about her research.

The talk can be viewed here.

Jenny also attended the 249th Electrochemical Society (ECS) Meeting from May 24–28 in Seattle, Washington. The ECS Meetings covered research from basic electrochemistry and solid state science up to the device-level focused on the theme of sustainable technologies such as batteries and fuel cells. She presented her research “From Images to Insights: A Statistical Metric for Quantifying Lithium Metal Morphology Evolution.” She received a Student Presentation Award for this work.

More information about this study can be found here.

Integrated planning of net-zero power systems for all

2026-05-04T00:00:00+00:00

Achieving global net-zero power systems by mid-century demands integrated frameworks addressing climate mitigation and energy access equity. Here we present a spatio-temporally resolved global power system model (0.25° × 0.25°, 8,760 hours) co-optimizing capacity expansion and operational strategies. Findings show that net-zero global power systems meeting universal electricity needs for decent living standards are technically feasible, requiring 15–20 TW of variable renewable energy (VRE). Abundant VRE resources offer cost-effective electricity access in low-income regions, such as Africa, promoting climate justice. Land use is critical, with solar photovoltaics alone requiring over 9 million hectares. Over 80% of VRE is within 200 km of load centres. Demand-side management could reduce system costs by 6.5% (∼US$182 billion/yr). Expanding international transmission and removing renewable technology trade barriers could cut costs by 5.6% (∼US$157 billion/yr) and 12.2% (∼US$345 billion/yr), underscoring the pivotal role of international collaboration in building inclusive net-zero power systems.

Article

Preprint

Model and Data

Recommended citation:

Zhu, Z., Mao, H., Yu, R., Botterud, A., Davidson, M. R., Lu, X., … Zhang, D. (2026). Integrated planning of net-zero power systems for all. Nature Energy, 1–21. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41560-026-02054-1

What policy choices does the US face on Chinese clean energy investment?

2026-04-27T00:00:00+00:00

This Brookings conversation with Ryan Hass and panelists Michael Dunne, Michael Davidson, and Kate Logan, argued that the United States faces a policy choice between excluding Chinese clean energy investment to reduce security and dependency risks and selectively allowing it to support deployment, affordability, and competitiveness. Existing U.S. policy has become a fragmented mix of tariffs, investment screening, FEOC rules, and other regulations, creating uncertainty for firms and policymakers. Michael Davidson highlighted that these risks differed substantially by technology and should not be treated with a one-size-fits-all approach; he pointed in particular to clearer concerns around bulk grid control and connected vehicles, while warning that excessive barriers could slow solar and battery deployment, raise costs, and complicate resource adequacy for the grid. Overall, the discussion suggested a calibrated framework for technologies and risks that uses targeted guardrails—such as ownership limits, licensing models, data localization, security review, and diversification incentives—rather than a simple allow-or-ban approach.

Commentary and Transcript

Brookings project on Chinese investment and America’s clean energy future

Offshore Wind Power and Resource Adequacy in the China Southern Grid

2026-04-17T00:00:00+00:00

China’s power grid is facing several challenges to reliability. While demand continues to grow, new resources are coming online, which change previous patterns. China’s Southern Grid has a particularly unique situation, given its largest consuming province, Guangdong, is reliant on imported hydropower, which can face transmission constraints as well as low rainfall. Offshore wind has the potential to address some of these challenges, particularly during system stress periods of coincident high demand and low supply events.

In a collaborative study between the California-China Climate Institute at UC Berkeley and UC San Diego, we evaluate how large-scale offshore wind development will impact Southern Grid stability through 2060. We first assessed offshore wind resource potential and developed a power system planning model for 2030 and 2060 across three distinct scenarios. Finally, we evaluated system operational performance across ten historical weather years.

The findings indicate that offshore wind is deployed preferentially along Guangdong’s central coastline and northern Hainan, partially substituting for hydropower expansion in Guangxi. Adequacy outcomes vary based on planning reserve margins and specific stress conditions. Under high renewable penetration, system reliability becomes increasingly sensitive to hydropower availability and flexible dispatch. Notably, sub-provincial analysis reveals that nearly all power shortfalls are concentrated within the Greater Bay Area.

From a system planner’s perspective, these results suggest that embedding operational stress testing—focused on summer peaks, drought-driven low-hydro years, and constrained interprovincial transfers—is essential. Integrating these risks into adequacy planning will better align infrastructure decisions with real-world system vulnerabilities, while remaining compatible with existing institutional arrangements.

Detailed modeling and policy analysis can be found in the links below.

Executive Summary (Chinese and English)
Full Report (English)

Recommended citation:

Wei, M., Zhang, Z., Cui, X., Kahrl, F., & Davidson, M. R. (2026). Offshore Wind Power and Resource Adequacy in the China Southern Grid. California-China Climate Institute. Retrieved from https://www.law.berkeley.edu/wp-content/uploads/archive/2026/03/Offshore-wind-Report-Feb-2026.pdf

Resource Adequacy Assessment for the East China Grid: Policy Interventions and Contingent Scenarios for 2030

2026-04-16T00:00:00+00:00

Figure: Yearly interprovincial and interregional transmission for ECG, 2022.

China’s East China Grid (ECG)—covering Shanghai, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Anhui, and Fujian—sits at the center of one of the country’s most economically important and electricity-intensive regions. As demand continues to grow, renewable penetration increases, and extreme weather risks become more frequent, policymakers face a critical challenge: how to maintain resource adequacy and system reliability at reasonable cost while advancing decarbonization goals. This report examines that challenge by developing a transparent, model-based assessment of ECG resource adequacy for 2030 under different policy and stress scenarios.

The analysis shows that the ECG’s adequacy risks are shaped less by absolute capacity shortage alone than by institutional and operational constraints. The region depends heavily on interprovincial and interregional power imports, yet current medium- and long-term contract arrangements can limit the ability of power flows to respond flexibly during stress periods. At the same time, demand response, virtual power plants, and energy storage are expanding, but their integration into market-based operations remains incomplete. In this context, simply adding more coal capacity is neither the only option nor necessarily the most effective one.

Using a provincial-node unit commitment and economic dispatch model with hourly simulation over 12 high-stress summer weeks in 2030, this report evaluates how different combinations of weather stress, load growth, and policy interventions affect reliability outcomes. The findings indicate that unified economic dispatch across provinces and regions is the most powerful lever for improving resource adequacy in East China. Under coordinated dispatch, the ECG can maintain very high reliability even without additional coal buildout after 2025. Expanded storage and stronger demand response also play important supporting roles, especially under conditions where dispatch reform remains incomplete. By contrast, additional coal capacity may reduce shortages in some stressed cases, but it can also crowd out more flexible resources and increase renewable curtailment in several provinces.

Based on these results, the report argues that East China’s resource adequacy challenge should be addressed through institutional reform and more efficient use of flexible resources, rather than relying primarily on further coal expansion. It recommends establishing a transparent rolling resource adequacy assessment process, accelerating ECG-wide spot market integration and economic dispatch, reforming coal-specific compensation mechanisms, improving incentives for virtual power plants and demand response, and rationalizing the policy framework for battery storage. Together, these measures can support a more reliable, lower-cost, and lower-emissions power system in East China by 2030.

Report

Recommended citation:

Davidson, M., Wei, M., Dupuy, M., Gao, C., Zhang, S., Shi, Z., Tang, W., & Wu, L. (2026). Resource adequacy assessment for the East China Grid: Policy interventions and contingent scenarios for 2030. Electricity Market Tracker. Available at: https://emtracker.org/research/resource-adequacy-assessment-for-the-east-china-grid-policy-interventions-and-contingent-scenarios-for-2030/.

Power Lab Members join inaugural cohort of NextGen Fellows at CERAWeek

2026-04-01T00:00:00+00:00

Pictured: Jenny Nicolas, Prof David Victor, Shiny Choudhury, Zhenhua Zhang and Zane Heather (SIO)

Power Lab members Shiny Choudhury, Jenny Nicolas, and Zhenhua Zhang attended CERAWeek in Houston from March 22nd to 26th as part of the inaugural NextGen Fellow cohort. They were selected from a UCSD-wide internal pool of Ph.D. candidates based on their advanced-stage research, academic excellence, and interest in the energy sector. They were joined by Prof. David Victor and Zane Heather of SIO.

CERAWeek is colloquially known as the “Energy Super Bowl.” It had over 11,000 attendees across 90 countries. Shiny, Jenny, and Zhenhua presented their research on SMRs, solar siting, and resource adequacy modeling at the Innovation Agora sessions.

Core to the theme of this year’s conference:

While there was much buzz about newer technologies such as enhanced geothermal, Gen-IV nuclear, and nuclear fusion, there is concern around financing and escaping the valley of death. Specifically, once funding for FOAK pilot projects dries up, where can new technologies turn for mid-stage capital?
Discussion of AI’s potential was far-reaching, extending well beyond the “AI Potential: Hype vs. Reality” panel in which Professor Victor was a panelist. The resounding message is that AI can be positive for the industry, supporting solutions to various energy transition challenges, such as easing strain on the interconnection queue. The key is for industry to get ahead of it—companies should leverage AI but not let it run their operations blindly. In parallel, the increase in energy demand from data centers will reshape the energy landscape.
The oil and gas industry was well represented at CERAWeek, and the impact of the blockage at the Strait of Hormuz could not be ignored. This echoes the 1973 oil embargo and raises questions about what happens when countries rely on oil imports, how individuals are affected when filling their cars with gas, and the meaning of “energy dominance” and “energy independence” in an uncertain geopolitical era. There were also hopes that countries would finally prioritize the energy transition in the face of such vulnerabilities.
In a time of political uncertainty and generational differences over the energy transition, media figure Van Jones and others on the closing panel discussed the importance of identifying shared priorities and forming coalitions.

In a panel featuring Arun Majumdar, Dean of the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability, he asked: as academics, where is the “white space” to transform industry? Within the Power Lab, we left CERAWeek feeling inspired to continue locating and uncovering that white space.

As an annual energy-sector convention, CERAWeek has undergone significant thematic shifts over the past few years. This year, the spotlight on hydrogen has notably dimmed, replaced by a more pragmatic focus on the physical risks facing data center infrastructure and the need to bring generation capacity online faster.

Clean energy targets felt underemphasized. The silence is uncomfortable, making it difficult to gauge the industry’s true appetite for green premiums—such as the ~15% increase in LCOE required to pair gas plants with carbon capture systems.

The macro-investment landscape reveals contrasts. The world has seen up to $2.2 trillion in renewable energy investments, roughly double that of fossil fuels in 2025. Despite this, early-stage clean tech companies continue to struggle to raise capital for geothermal drilling, climate risk mitigation, gas turbine repurposing, and related efforts.

What remains promising is the shift in dialogue from “if” to “how.” Conversations are centered on how to do this better: driving down costs through innovation, such as high-efficiency perovskite solar cells. There is also a growing focus on go-to-market strategies over technical specifications. Whether it is ammonia for the shipping industry or cross-border carbon transfer, the industry is learning how to attract more capital: simplicity, revenue certainty, and operational reliability.

Power Lab members wonder what CERAWeek will cover next year. The integration of compute, energy, and infrastructure; the hunt for credibility in a highly chaotic world; and the continued expansion of AI. 2027 and beyond will be interesting to track.

China’s Solar Industry Is in Upheaval—The Effects Will Be Global

2026-03-12T00:00:00+00:00

Over the past few years, China’s solar industry has entered a period of intense upheaval. Price wars and margin compression have forced industry leaders—including Jinko Solar, Trina Solar, and JA Solar—to report significant losses. These firms, along with LONGi Green Energy and Tongwei—the industry’s top five—slashed their workforce by over 30 percent in 2024. The market is facing industry consolidation and exits not seen in over a decade, as over 40 smaller firms have filed for bankruptcy, been acquired, or exited the market. Chinese regulators are accelerating this process, which will have ripple effects across global solar markets.

Several critical questions arise: Does this phase erode China’s leadership in solar, or entrench it further? Is it a window for others to close the gap, or a prelude to deeper market displacement? And when the current wave of capacity consolidation settles, what will the next global competitive order look like? The answer is already emerging. Rather than opening space for rivals to catch up, the current shocks are forging a more resilient Chinese solar core. By embedding deeper into global value chains and securing a technological lead, China is effectively reshaping the industry’s future trajectory to its own long-term advantage.

Read Full Brief

Resource adequacy under institutional constraints and the low-carbon energy transition in China

2026-03-06T00:00:00+00:00

Resource adequacy of the power sector is coming under increasing stress globally due to rising electricity demand, extreme weather, and growth of variable renewable energy (VRE). Institutionally, many power sectors are transitioning from traditional central planning to some degree of market liberalization, with varied regulatory approaches to ensuring supply security. China’s distinct medium- and long-term (MLT) agreement mechanisms are physical and characterized by a high degree of state intervention, with important implications for resource adequacy. This study investigates the power shortages that plagued China from 2020 to 2022, examining their extent, causes, and governmental responses. Quantitative simulations are conducted to analyze retrospectively the underlying institutional and operational factors behind the fall 2021 power crisis in Northeast China, relying on an extensive collection of publicly available datasets, ensuring transparency and reproducibility. The results highlight the rigidity of existing institutional arrangements, including MLT and capped electricity prices, in adapting to a decarbonizing energy system. Looking to 2030, China’s post-crisis policy response—particularly the large-scale approval of new coal plants—may not fully resolve the power shortages if rigid institutional constraints on cross-provincial power trading persist. Instead, more flexible market and inter-provincial trading mechanisms can contribute to power sector reliability while managing growing VRE penetration.

Article

Model and Data

Recommended citation:

Wei, M., Yao, B., & Davidson, M. R. (2026). Resource adequacy under institutional constraints and the low-carbon energy transition in China. Energy Policy, 213, 115108. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2026.115108

Physics-Informed Unit Commitment Framework for Nuclear Reactors

2026-03-02T00:00:00+00:00

Nuclear reactors are often modeled as inflexible baseload generators with fixed downtimes and restrictive ramping limits. In practice, however, operational flexibility for a reactor is coupled with its fuel-cycle. A critical physics constraint arises from xenon poisoning, in which the buildup of the neutron absorbing xenon following a power ramp-down suppresses core reactivity, thereby limiting power maneuvers and reactor restarts. Existing power system models represent these effects using static constraints, neglecting the crucial dependence of xenon-induced inflexibility on the instantaneous state of a reactor core. This study offers a physics-informed unit commitment framework that embeds fuel-cycle dynamics into dispatch modeling. Our approach tracks the reactivity margin and enforces core-state-dependent constraints on allowable minimum generation and restart downtimes, while endogenously scheduling refueling outages. To demonstrate the formalism, we apply the framework to a representative nuclear fleet operating alongside high shares of renewable energy and storage. The results show that operational mode significantly affects system outcomes; flexible nuclear operation slows reactivity degradation, extends fuel-cycles by up to 10%, reduces renewable curtailment, lowers production costs, and delays the onset of refueling outages. These findings highlight the importance of fuel-cycle-aware flexibility modeling and provide a computationally tractable approach for assessing the role of flexible nuclear power in decarbonized grids.

Open Access

Code and Dataset Repository

Recommended citation:

Choudhury, S., Davidson, M. R., & Tynan, G. R. (2026). Physics-Informed Unit Commitment Framework for Nuclear Reactors. IEEE Access, 14, 33744–33755. https://doi.org/10.1109/ACCESS.2026.3669505