In this episode the Prof. Matteo Di Castelnuovo from SDA Bocconi School of Management meets professor Arturo Lorenzoni, professor of Energy Economics and Electricity Market Economics at the University of Padova.
Electrical engineer turned economist, Professor Arturo Lorenzoni was inspired to pursue energy economics by pioneer Professor Luigi de Paoli. He charts the field’s dramatic transformation: teaching evolved from regulating natural monopolies to managing market liberalization in the 1990s. Now, he observes the market is circling back, with solutions like long-term contracts being reintroduced to mitigate the volatility driven by high renewable penetration. Lorenzoni’s early foresight proved remarkable: his 1993 research on wind and photovoltaics is now "the mainstream of the investments". He is immensely proud of his involvement in the landmark European ExternE project, which pioneered the monetary evaluation of external costs. Today, his focus is modeling long-term 2050 decarbonization scenarios and tackling his "dream" project: successfully designing a new electricity market design to improve upon the current marginal price system.