Technology Studies

This course focuses on the drivers for innovation in Ontario's energy sector, the opportunities for new business, and the challenges of moving from the idea stage to the marketplace. Barriers to innovation and commercialization - technological, financial, and regulatory - will be explored through case studies, including lessons learned from guest lectures by business leaders in the Ontario energy sector.

This course will examine the challenges of modernizing and digitizing the electrical grid in Ontario. It will explore the engineering and technological challenges of the smart grid; the issues of privacy and security; third party access to smart grid data; technologies which allow customers to manage their consumption of electricity; and the innovation and economic opportunities of the smart grid.

This course is designed to allow students to explore the technical and policy dimensions of energy conservation, energy efficiency, and demand response, with particular focus on potential contributions to sustainability of urban energy systems in a Canadian and, more particularly, an Ontario-based context. A key element of this course will be guest speakers from the energy industry, many of whom are potential employers.

This course introduces students to the wide range of factors that influence the implementation of energy policy in Canada. The course will review the social, political, geographic, and other pressures that make the energy debate so highly charged in our very regionalized country. Students will appreciate how many non-technical issues impinge upon energy policy and why certain policy outcomes seem to be decided by these social and political considerations.