The Carnegie Mellon Electricity Industry Center works with companies, labor, regulators, the financial community, consumers, and technologists to make the electricity industry more competitive, its systems more reliable and secure, to create wealth, and to serve the public interest. The Center is located jointly in the Tepper School of Business and the Department of Engineering and Public Policy. The Center was founded by the Sloan Foundation along with the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), a nonprofit energy research consortium for electric utilities.  

   
The Center's multidisciplinary research projects include:

- Investigation of the performance of restructured and traditional electricity markets, with an emphasis on market structure design

- Analysis of the economic, security, and environmental impacts of distributed generation and storage of electricity

- Examination of various aspects of electricity demand, including price volatility in a deregulated environment, price sensitivity of various customer classes, and potential peak load management approaches

- Assessment of the technologies, costs, and operational challenges of potential stringent controls on mercury and carbon dioxide

- Investigation of the integration of remote and intermittent energy sources (such as wind) into commercial power systems through the use of long-distance transmission and dispatchable backup capacity

- Analysis of the reliability of electric power, and the security aspects of the system

- Strategies for the changing workforce of the electric power industry.

   The Advisory Committee plays a critical role in the operation of the Center, developing its research needs and priorities, assisting in interpreting research results, and providing access to people and facilities for direct observation, data and insights. Organizations represented on the Committee include: ABB, AC Westinghouse Electric Company, American Electric Power, Bonneville Power Administration, Caterpillar, Cinergy, Exelon, General Electric, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, McKinsey and Company, NRECA, Natural Resources Defense Council, PJM, Southern Company, the Tennessee Valley Authority, and TXU. The Center also works closely with EPRI management, staff and member companies to develop complementary research plans.

   Carnegie Mellon University offers the Center world-class expertise and research capabilities through collaborations with continuing technical, economic, environmental, and regulatory research initiatives underway in associated, problem-focused centers and institutes.