Chiara Lo Prete

Email:

chiaraloprete@psu.edu

Phone:

814-865-0982

Office Address:

213 Hosler Building

Title(s):

Associate Professor of Energy Economics

Associate Head for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

Webpage:

https://sites.psu.edu/chiaraloprete/

Curriculum Vitae (162.33 KB)

Expertise:

Applied econometrics
Electricity market design
Energy economics and policy
Modeling of electricity and natural gas systems

Research Cluster:

Education:

2012: Ph.D., Geography and Environmental Engineering, The Johns Hopkins University
2009: M.S., Geography and Environmental Engineering, The Johns Hopkins University
2004: M.A., Energy Economics, Scuola Enrico Mattei
2003: B.A., Economics (summa cum laude), LUISS University

Courses Taught:

EBF 483: Introduction to electricity markets (undergraduate)
EBF 200: Introduction to energy and environmental economics (undergraduate)
EBF 401: Corporate finance (undergraduate)
EEFE 511: Econometrics II (graduate)
EMSC 297: The Geopolitics of Energy (undergraduate)

Unit:

John and Willie Leone Family Department of Energy and Mineral Engineering

About:

Chiara Lo Prete is associate professor of energy economics in the John and Willie Leone Family Department of Energy and Mineral Engineering at Penn State, and a faculty member in the Intercollege Graduate Degree Program in Energy, Environmental, and Food Economics (EEFE) at Penn State. Her research centers on the economics of energy markets, with a focus on the areas of competition and design of electricity markets, the economics of energy infrastructure resilience, geopolitics and energy security, and the impacts of environmental regulations on power generation. Recent work has focused on the development of mathematical models and application of empirical methods to study emission leakage, electricity market structures for wind energy integration, resilience of interdependent natural gas and electric power systems, the weaponization of electricity trade, and cross-product manipulation.

Lo Prete serves on the editorial board of Economics of Energy & Environmental Policy, and she is the editor of the “Contemporary Energy Issues in Europe” section on Current Sustainable/Renewable Energy Reports. Since July 2021, she is associate head of diversity, equity and inclusion in the John and Willie Leone Family Department of Energy and Mineral Engineering.

Before joining Penn State, Lo Prete was a Ziff Environmental Fellow at Harvard University from 2012 to 2014. She earned a B.A. in economics (summa cum laude) from LUISS University, an M.A. in energy economics from the Scuola Mattei, and a M.S. and Ph.D. in geography and environmental engineering from The Johns Hopkins University. Prior to earning her doctorate, she worked as an energy analyst at Eni for three years.

For additional information on Lo Prete’s research, see her research map.

Publications:

C. Lo Prete, A. Tyagi and Q. Xu (2023). “California’s cap-and-trade program and emission leakage in the Western Interconnection: comparing econometric and partial equilibrium model estimates”. Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/726053.
C. Hohl, C. Lo Prete, A. Radhakrishnan and M. Webster (2023). “Intraday markets, wind integration and uplift in a regional U.S. power system.” Energy Policy 175, 113503.
C. Lo Prete and A. Radhakrishnan (2023). “Leaker-follower equilibria to examine investment decisions in grid resilience-enhancing measures.” Risk Analysis 43, 280-307.
N. Guo and C. Lo Prete (2019). “Cross-product manipulation with intertemporal constraints: an equilibrium model”. Energy Policy 134, pp. 1-10.
C. Lo Prete, W.W. Hogan, B. Liu and J. Wang (2019). “Cross-product manipulation in electricity markets, microstructure models and asymmetric information.” The Energy Journal 40(5), pp. 221-246.
C. Lo Prete, N. Guo, and U.V. Shanbhag (2019). “Virtual bidding and financial transmission rights: an equilibrium model for cross-product manipulation in electricity markets.” IEEE Transactions on Power Systems 34(2), pp. 953–967.
A. Kleit, C. Lo Prete, S. Blumsack and N. Guo (2019). “Weather or not? Welfare impacts of natural gas pipeline expansion in the Northeastern U.S.” Energy Systems 10(3), pp. 593-633.
C. Lo Prete and B.F. Hobbs (2016). “A cooperative game theoretic analysis of incentives for microgrids in regulated electricity markets”. Applied Energy 169, pp. 524-541.
C. Lo Prete and B.F. Hobbs (2015). “Market power in power markets: an analysis of residual demand curves in California’s day-ahead energy market in 1998-2000”. The Energy Journal 36(2), pp. 191-218.
S. Cano-Andrade, M.R. von Spakovsky, A. Fuentes, C. Lo Prete and L. Mili (2015). “Upper level of a sustainability assessment framework for power system planning.” Journal of Energy Resources Technology 137(4), pp. 1-11.
C. Lo Prete and C.S. Norman (2013). “Rockets and feathers in CO₂-power markets? New evidence from the second phase of the EU ETS”. Energy Economics 36, pp. 312-321.
C. Lo Prete, B.F. Hobbs, C.S. Norman, S. Cano-Andrade, A. Fuentes, M.R. von Spakovsky and L. Mili (2012). “Sustainability and reliability assessment of microgrids in a regional electricity market”. Energy 41, pp. 192-202.

WORK IN PROGRESS

“Capacity markets vs. “energy only” markets under increasing wind penetration”, with C. Hohl.
“Capacity contracts, competing claims for natural gas and grid reliability during extreme weather events”, with A. Radhakrishnan.
“Electricity grids and geopolitical coercion: a game theoretic analysis of the synchronization of the Baltic states’ networks with continental Europe”, with S. Fang, A.M. Jaffe and T. Loch-Temzelides.
“Comparing multi-settlement market designs for wind integration: an experimental study”, with C. Hohl, J. Wu, A. Kwasnica, R. Rong and F. Zhu.
“Comparing designs for resource adequacy in laboratory electricity markets”, with J. Wu, R. Rong and B. Ünel.

Awards:

National Science Foundation, Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award, 2020
Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, Early Career Researcher Award, 2018