By Fernando Nuno / Published on Fri, 2009-10-02 09:49
Session 3: Price Regulation
This session explains different forms of price control, including the classical rate of return organisation and more advanced forms of incentive regulation. It will also explain the design criteria for different price control models.
• Major price control models: Rate of return / Cap regulation / Yardstick competition / Sliding scale regulation
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By Fernando Nuno / Published on Fri, 2009-10-02 09:42
SESSION 2: Market Design
This section explains the main properties of different types of electricity markets exhibiting different level of competition and different forms of organisation.
• General market models : vertically integrated companies / single buyer / wholesale competition / retail competition
• Power pools : Price based / Cost based
• Markets with bilateral trade
• Balancing markets
• Power exchanges
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By Fernando Nuno / Published on Fri, 2009-10-02 09:24
This session explains the main tasks of regulation and addresses three main questions: what is regulated, where is it regulated, and how is it regulated.
In addition, we explain how the communication between regulators and regulated companies is organised, and how the regulatory performance is measured.
• General tasks of regulators: Price, Quality, Market functioning
• Areas of regulation
• Scope of regulation
• Methods of regulation
• Institutional questions
• Consultation and communication
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By Isabelle Heriakian / Published on Wed, 2008-04-09 16:39
Bart Franken & Erwin Hoeskma from Kema explain what regulators need to consider in establishing an effective voltage quality regulatory framework for distribution networks. In particular, they consider the regulation of five voltage quality dimensions: short interruptions, voltage dips, flicker, supply voltage variation, and harmonic distortions. Their work assesses the most appropriate regulatory control method and presents practical experiences through a number of case studies.
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By Hans De Keulenaer / Published on Tue, 2008-02-19 18:20
This page is a live document to support the discussion webinar on the above topic before and after the event. We look forward to reading your comments on this page.
This webinar will discuss the European Commission's Proposal for a Directive on the Promotion of the Use of Energy from Renewable Sources. The webinar starts with a briefing on the proposal, followed by a discussion on its strong and weak points.
Indicative list of discussion points (other points may arise depending on participants):
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By Hans De Keulenaer / Published on Mon, 2007-06-18 15:20
In several European countries, the liberalisation process has progressed at varying speeds. Despite the fact that no straightforward path to success has emerged, there is a general lesson to be learned: Electricity market liberalisation is not an event. It is a long process that requires strong and sustained political commitment, extensive and detailed preparation, and continuous development to allow for necessary improvements while sustaining ongoing investment.
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By Hans Nilsson / Published on Fri, 2007-04-06 07:00
A few years ago when liberalisation of electricity markets gathered speed, many utilities withdrew their interest from DSM and all activities that were related to customers and efficient end-use. In Europe, they are coming back gradually, not least since the energy services directive so requires, but also to some extent since the positive values in marketing (and in ancillary services) have been discovered.
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By Hans Nilsson / Published on Tue, 2006-11-21 08:00
A billion-Euro question?
The European Union have high and rising ambitions for the use of renewable fuels especially for electricity generation. A project, called REALISE, has been charged with the question to discuss and suggest how the goals can be met on liberalised markets. Such discussions have a tendency to develop into a fight between on one hand the defenders of feed-in tariffs, nowadays also organised in a feed-in cooperation, and on the other hand the defenders of certificate systems. Both having good arguments for their case but also both being dependent on "government-will" for their actions. Either setting the tariffs or setting the quota. The difference may not be so big in terms of logic. In one case you decide the price (the tariff) and will have to see how big a volume you get and in the other you decide the volume (quota) and will have to see what price you get. Presently is seems as if the feed-in tariffs deliver more volume since the investors can predict their economic results better than they can in a quota-system.
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By Hans De Keulenaer / Published on Fri, 2006-10-27 13:34
This study analyses the auctions organised by power exchanges in Europe. Power exchanges are institutions that facilitate wholesale trade in electric energy. Most exchanges organise separate auctions day ahead for every hour of the next day. Generators, large consumers, suppliers and traders fine-tune their portfolios via these trading platforms.
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By Bruno De Wachter / Published on Mon, 2006-08-28 05:30
Withholding a basic load generator can be profitable
The presentation ‘Reliability Concepts and Market Power’ of Professor Fernando L. Alvarado (University of Wisconsin) illustrates a few of the complex phenomena that occur on the electrical power market. In it, he discusses the interactions between the number of utility companies, power demand, power price, and cost recovery possibilities for a utility company.
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By Hans De Keulenaer / Published on Mon, 2006-05-29 06:02
In this minute lecture, the main cost components of electricity are presented, demonstrating large variations in electricity cost across countries, and across market segments.
Liberalisation in Europe has introduced competition in electricity markets, but this mainly relates to the energy component of electricity price. Networks remain regulated monopolies, and several countries have used the liberalisation dividend (cost reduction due to increased competition) to raise taxes in order to finance policies for sustainable energy.
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By Hans De Keulenaer / Published on Thu, 2006-05-18 05:39
The Conference Board of Canada published last month a briefing paper "Sustainability and Energy Security - Wrestling with Competing Futures" (paper freely available after registration), describing how policy makers around the world struggle to 'keep the lights on and the air clean', while facing 3 tensions:
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By Hans De Keulenaer / Published on Wed, 2006-05-17 05:19
Setting the scene
The European Union, wishing to demonstrate international leadership in the fight against climate change, but worried about the impact of climate policy on its industry competitiveness, has set up an Emission Trading Scheme. This scheme allocates allowances - the right to emit a tonne of CO2, to the 12,000 largest emitters in Europe, i.e. power generators and large industry (the covered sector). Allowances are allocated per period.
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By HDK / Published on Thu, 2006-03-16 13:02
Electricity markets of the EU member states are too weakly integrated to create a truly European market. That is the point of view of the following paper by the ESAT-Electa group of the KULeuven. It explains how the current situation has come about, before proposing a step-by-step plan to link national markets. The latter is crucial to stabilize prices, avoid local market power abuse, and consolidate best practices.
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By Hans De Keulenaer / Published on Mon, 2005-12-19 09:25
A recent report by KEMA Consulting for Eurelectric reviews electricity prices in Europe. The report challenges the current thinking that liberalisation leads to higher prices. The cost of electricity is subdivided in 3 parts:
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By Hans De Keulenaer / Published on Sun, 2005-12-18 18:33
At this conference, Jean-Pierre Hansen from Electrabel presented a view about the rising tension between political vision and market reality when it comes to energy, and electricity in particular. As a result, the electricity industry needs to learn to manage a number of paradoxes. Economic efficiency requires a market with competition, but a large part of the system is the network, which is a natural monopoly that needs to be regulated. A helpful analogy is to think of liberalisation as a play in 3 acts:
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By HDK / Published on Wed, 2005-11-23 16:05
In this discussion paper by CE Delft, the current and expect impact of liberalising the electricity market is described, based on input from an expert group. The themes are clean electricity, reliability of the system and its cost. The paper concludes:
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By Anne Rialhe / Published on Sun, 2005-10-30 00:00
This paper presents three different types of certificates ('white' for energy savings, 'green' for renewable electricity, and 'black' for greenhouse gas reductions in the European Emission Trading Scheme). The current limited experiences with these instruments already allow to define some of the success factors for these new instruments. A synthesis of their current application presents how much energy is saved today due to these certificates, and how much green electricity is produced. A discussion on the methods for setting the targets, measuring the impacts on the market and the interaction between these different instruments concludes this paper, followed by a reminder of the proposal to create an international agency on global stewardship for climate change issues.
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