Search Results

Now showing 1 - 2 of 2
  • Item
    Why the sustainable provision of low-carbon electricity needs hybrid markets
    (Oxford : Elsevier, 2022) Keppler, Jan Horst; Quemin, Simon; Saguan, Marcelo
    Deep decarbonization of energy systems poses considerable challenges to electricity markets and there is a growing consensus that an energy-only design based on short-term marginal cost pricing cannot deliver adequate levels of investment and long-term coordination across actors and sectors. Based on the instructive example of the evolution of European electricity market designs, we discuss several shortcomings of energy-only markets and illustrate how ad-hoc policies that intend to address them have limitations of their own, notably a lack of systemwide coordination. Second, we describe how the sheer scale and nature of deep decarbonization targets requiring massive investment in capital-intensive low-carbon technologies exacerbate these issues. Ambitious emission reduction targets thus require an evolution of market design towards hybrid regimes. Hybrid markets separate long-term investment decisions from short-term operations through a balanced and differentiated use of competitive and regulatory design elements to coordinate and de-risk investment. Finally, a historical analysis of the evolution of different electricity market designs shows how hybrid markets constitute contemporary forms of long-run marginal cost pricing that are appropriate for meeting deep decarbonization targets with reduced uncertainty and hence lower private and social costs.
  • Item
    Security of supply in european electricity markets-determinants of investment decisions and the European Energy Union
    (Basel : MDPI, 2015) Ellenbeck, Saskia; Beneking, Andreas; Ceglarz, Andrzej; Schmidt, Peter; Battaglini, Antonella
    The European Union and its Member States are seeking to decarbonize their energy systems, including the electricity sector and, at the same time, pursue market integration. However, renewable energy (RE) deployment and the liberalization of the energy-only market have raised concerns at the national level about the security of electricity supplies in the future. Some actors consider the lack of sufficient investments in generation capacities a threat to supply security. As a consequence, it was proposed that capacity markets solve these problems. The underlying assumption is that the market design is the only determining factor for investments in security of supply options. In this article, we question this narrow view and identify further determinants of the investment decisions of electricity market participants. Based on the insights of institutional sociology and economics, we understand the market to be a social institution that structures the behavioural expectations of market participants. Derived from the theoretical conceptualization and based on qualitative literature review and own work, we find four determinants for investment behaviour beyond the formal market design: Material opportunities, strategic actor behavior and identity, focusing events and discursive expectations about the future. With this perspective, we discuss the introduction of a European Energy Union as a possible tool that might have a great impact on the more informal determinants such as expectations about the future and the construction of a European energy narrative.