AAG Economic Geography Specialty Group (EGSG)

@econgeog.bsky.social

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Economic Geography Specialty Group (EGSG) of the American Association of Geographers.

In this presentation, I explore what it means to have financial actors and institutions guiding change in the electricity sector. Finance, I argue, proves a useful way to the study energy transitions in part because of the industry’s necessity to the construction of electricity infrastructure. Because this infrastructure tends to be long lasting, it is the decisions of financial actors – provide funding for this project or that one – that have an enormous influence on electricity infrastructure, and therefore on the trajectories for current and future life on the planet. More than this, I show how financial firms are engaged in the electricity industry in ways beyond investment – rather there has been a fusion of industrial and financial capital in the sector, with financial firms owning electricity generation infrastructure, trading electricity on markets, capturing federal renewable energy tax credits, and advising on electricity firm operating strategy. I use the case of Winter Storm Uri and the deadly collapse of the Texas electricity grid to begin unraveling monolithic accounts of ‘finance’ through case studies of the workings of private equity, commercial banks, and sell-side equity analysts, and help to make sense of the convoluted patchwork of electricity firms, markets, and forms of regulation that comprise the U.S. electricity sector.
A poster with details about an event sponsored by the EGSG about getting a postdoc in human geography.