Professor Dedrick’s current research is developing an interactive energy dashboard for visualizing and managing electricity use at the individual and community levels. The dashboard will be a critical tool in the development of community energy programs that incorporate renewables, storage and demand response, creating economic value and improving the environment.

Professor Dedrick is focusing on the development of an urban building energy model to simulate, test, and visualize future scenarios and strategies in order to: 1) support clean and resilient functioning of the electric grid; 2) minimize energy by buildings while improving occupant comfort; 3) match external energy resources with building energy demand. The integration of energy datasets and visualization methods enable the design, testing, and identification of opportunities for energy conservation, production, and architectural and urban planning design strategies and guidelines for clean and renewable energy.

Professor Dedrick is analyzing data on household electricity use to model the impacts of different market structures, and will test those models empirically. These market structures include programs such as peak rebates and time-of-use pricing that could maximize the use of renewable energy or minimize carbon emissions, without greatly increasing customers’ electricity bills or threatening grid stability. Professor Dedrick’s model could be very useful to that state as New York is leading the transition to distributed energy markets at the retail level with policies that envision the role of utilities as distributed energy platforms.