Please note that this presentation, which had originally been scheduled to take place on September 24, 2025, has now been rescheduled for October 29, 2025.
Tiemeng Ma, PhD candidate in Energy, Environmental, and Food Economics at Penn State University, will present the EEEP Seminar Series, “From Local Shocks to Regional Impacts: Economic Consequences of Public Safety Power Shutoffs in California on Western U.S. Residents and Sectors” on October 29, 2025.
Abstract:
California’s Public Safety Power Shutoffs (PSPS) mitigate wildfire ignition risk but impose large economic costs. This study develops a commuting-zone level computable general equilibrium model integrating circuit-level PSPS data, county SAMs, and energy use to quantify welfare and production impacts of PSPS events. The framework captures both direct interruption costs and indirect economy-wide effects under different shock scenarios, accounting for heterogeneity across households and sectors as well as interstate linkages within the Western Electricity Coordinating Council (WECC) region. The study further evaluates the cost–benefit trade-offs of infrastructure strategies such as sectionalizing devices, line undergrounding, and backup microgrids, assessing their role in balancing wildfire mitigation and economic resilience.
Bio:
Tiemeng Ma is a final-year Ph.D. candidate in Energy, Environmental, and Food Economics at Pennsylvania State University. Her research fields are energy and environmental economics, focusing on the impacts of extreme climate events on power and energy systems, infrastructure resilience, and adaptation by households and industries. She develops and calibrates computable general equilibrium (CGE) models and applies econometric methods, complemented by machine learning techniques, to analyze policy trade-offs, distributional impacts, and system resilience—especially in contexts such as wildfires and power disruptions. Her current work has been recognized with the USAEE Best Student Paper (runner-up) and the EPG Best Poster.