EME 805 - Renewable Energy and Non-Market Enterprise
This is a sample syllabus.
This sample syllabus is a representative example of the information and materials included in this course. Information about course assignments, materials, and dates listed here is subject to change at any time. Definitive course details and materials will be available in the official course syllabus, in Canvas, when the course begins.
Overview
Renewable-energy enterprises do not operate in markets that exist independently of law, infrastructure, political authority, social norms, or collective action. Electricity rates, interconnection rules, tax policy, public procurement, zoning, permitting, technical standards, financing conventions, and community legitimacy all help create the conditions under which energy technologies can be financed, built, operated, and expanded.
This course uses "nonmarket strategy" as a practical but contested term for strategies directed toward political, regulatory, institutional, and social conditions rather than toward price, production, and competition alone. We begin by examining how markets are socially constructed and by placing the market/nonmarket distinction in tension. In particular, the course asks what is classified as "outside" the market when the market is defined through narrow, price-centered or neoliberal assumptions.
The course is organized around strategic problems rather than a sequence of technology surveys. During the first five weeks, students develop a common framework connecting market construction, stakeholder and institutional analysis, public authority, ethics and externalities, and systems thinking. During the next six weeks, students apply that framework to renewable-energy decisions. The final week is devoted to integration, presentation, and reflection.
Application topics include governing electricity markets, solar enterprise and project strategy, energy storage and grid flexibility, renewable-project development, low-carbon transportation fuels, and transportation electrification. Solar, storage, and transportation receive sustained attention because they expose distinct and rapidly evolving enterprise problems. Wind remains substantively present through grid, siting, permitting, transmission, procurement, and political-risk cases rather than as a stand-alone technology survey.
Throughout the course, the emphasis is on professional practice. Students use technical, market, regulatory, stakeholder, and project-level evidence to construct analytical maps, compare strategic options, identify uncertainties and tradeoffs, and prepare defensible recommendations for firms, developers, utilities, public agencies, cooperatives, or community organizations. The course culminates in an integrative renewable-enterprise strategy project.
Objectives
Students who excel in this course are able to:
- Analyze renewable-energy markets as socially and institutionally constructed systems, including how technical conditions, infrastructure, law, regulation, and the market/nonmarket distinction shape enterprise decisions.
- Apply stakeholder, institutional, systems, and ethical analysis to evaluate power, externalities, tradeoffs, justice, and uncertainty in renewable-energy decisions.
- Develop and compare integrated market and nonmarket strategies for renewable-energy technologies, projects, and enterprises.
- Use relevant energy, market, regulatory, and project-level evidence to communicate and defend recommendations for defined decision makers.
Required Materials
The materials listed here represent those that may be included in this course. Students will find a definitive list in the course syllabus, in Canvas, when the course begins.
- Yellowdig discussion platform (fee required)
Prerequisites
None. Foundational material will be introduced early in the course. Students should be prepared for graduate-level reading, evidence-based writing, interpretation of basic quantitative information, and applied analysis.
Expectations
This is a three-credit graduate course delivered over 12 instructional weeks. Students should expect to spend an average of 8-12 hours per week on course work. A typical week may include readings, short lectures, data exploration, discussion, and an applied case activity. Because the cases build cumulatively on a common analytical framework, keeping pace with the course schedule is important.
Successful participation requires more than summarizing readings. Students will be expected to make claims from evidence, identify uncertainties and missing information, engage respectfully with competing values and strategies, revise their analysis when new information appears, and ask for clarification or assistance when needed.
Major Assignments
- Five Applied Strategy Assignments (25% total). Short products may include a market-construction and stakeholder map, an ethics and externalities brief, a systems map and leverage analysis, a comparative sector case memo, and a regional or sector strategy brief.
- Two Integrative Case-Based Examinations (50% total). Each assessment will require students to synthesize course concepts, interpret technical and institutional evidence, compare strategic alternatives, and defend a recommendation. The final format may be take-home, timed, packet-based, or a combination of these approaches.
- Final Integrative Strategy Project (25%). Students will develop an integrated market and nonmarket strategy for a defined actor facing a consequential renewable-energy decision. Staged work may include a proposal, evidence base, stakeholder and systems analysis, strategy report, and executive briefing or presentation.
Course Schedule
| Week | Topic | Illustrative focus |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Markets as Socially Constructed Systems | Market formation, institutions, externalities, and the analytical limits of the market/nonmarket distinction. |
| 2 | Nonmarket Strategy Toolkit: Stakeholders, Institutions, and Power | Stakeholder and institutional mapping; interests, authority, power, legitimacy, collective action, and strategic response. |
| 3 | Government, Regulation, and Integrative Strategy | How law, regulation, taxation, procurement, and public investment shape markets; combining commercial and nonmarket action. |
| 4 | Ethics, Externalities, and Energy Justice | Distribution, procedure, recognition, public value, community effects, displaced burdens, and intergenerational responsibility. |
| 5 | Systems Thinking and Renewable Enterprise | System boundaries, feedbacks, delays, path dependence, infrastructure lock-in, leverage points, and the common case method. |
| 6 | Governing Electricity Markets | Utility structures, wholesale and retail market design, transmission, interconnection, reliability, and control over grid access. |
| 7 | Solar Enterprise and Project Strategy | Distributed, community, and utility-scale solar; compensation rules, business models, siting, local value, and solar-plus-storage. |
| 8 | Energy Storage and Grid Flexibility | Battery and long-duration storage; revenue stacking, market participation, reliability value, safety, siting, supply chains, and end of life. |
| 9 | Building Renewable Energy Projects: Solar and Wind Cases | Permitting, land use, environmental review, community benefits, opposition, transmission dependence, procurement, and political risk. |
| 10 | Low-Carbon Transportation Fuels | Sustainable aviation fuel, renewable diesel, biofuels, credit markets, feedstock constraints, and contested lifecycle claims. |
| 11 | Transportation Electrification and Charging Infrastructure | Charging business models, utility coordination, grid upgrades, public investment, access, interoperability, and utilization risk. |
| 12 | Integrative Renewable-Enterprise Strategy | Cross-sector synthesis, final recommendations and presentations, strategic tradeoffs, and reflection on the market/nonmarket distinction. |