Intern Works to Encourage Beneficial Electrification in Alaska Community

Shivani Mathur is a third-year doctoral student in mineral and energy economics at the Colorado School of Mines. She is working with ACEP team members and their utility partner, Inside Passage Electric Cooperative, to understand possible rate structures that can encourage beneficial electrification, with an emphasis on heat pumps and perhaps electric vehicles, in Kake, Alaska.

The project also hopes to come up with strategies to integrate utility (community-scale) solar photovoltaic, heat pump and electric vehicle technologies into the Kake grid in ways that benefit customers and the utility.

Mathur’s research interests include grid integration of renewable energy, distributed energy systems and improving energy access in communities. She has a graduate degree in public policy from Oregon State University and an undergraduate degree in electrical engineering from the University of Pune, India. She has previously worked with a nonprofit in India and the National Renewable  Energy Laboratory on state and local energy policy and technology issues. 

This internship is being funded by ACEP's Anchorage office, which oversees the Solar Technologies Program and ACEP's beneficial electrification research thrust. For more information, contact Michelle Wilber at mmwilber@alaska.edu.

 

Shivani Mathur is an intern with ACEP’s Anchorage office. She’s shown here hiking in North Cascades National Park in Washington state. Photo courtesy of Shivani Mathur.