Community Benefits Agreements are Coasean bargaining agreements. They create ways for data centers & host communities to negotiate over externalities like noise, water, pollution, and energy use, by defining rights, lowering transaction costs, and making commitments enforceable.

Is “resource adequacy” still enough? As resources become bundles of capabilities, reliability becomes increasingly multidimensional. I propose thinking about “capability adequacy” instead, & institutions that can keep revising what counts as technology expands the feasible set.

Power electronics is turning grid resources into programmable bundles of capabilities. That changes the economic problem. A battery can provide energy, reserves, frequency response, voltage support & more—but not all at once. Every choice has an opportunity cost. Link follows.

Christopher Cox’s outstanding NYT piece on transformers catalyzed my fascination with power-electronics. My new article: transformers expanded the grid’s feasible set a century ago. Power electronics—batteries, advanced inverters, solid-state transformers—is doing it again.

VPPs and real-time pricing can complement each other. But what governs the automated device: a market-clearing price or an administrative command? That distinction matters. Link to follow.