In the European Emission Trading scheme the supply of allowances exceeds emissions - cumulating, according to our estimates, in a surplus of 2.7 billion tonnes by 2013/2014. We find that initially the surplus was acquired by power companies so as to hedge future carbon costs. As the surplus...

Integrating large quantities of supply-driven renewable electricity generation remains a political and operational challenge. One of the main obstacles in Europe to installing at least 200 GWs of power from variable renewable sources is how to deal with the insufficient network capacity and the...

EU Member States increase deployment of intermittent renewable energy sources to deliver the 20% renewable target formulated in the European Renewables Directive of 2008. To incorporate these intermittent sources, a power market needs to be flexible enough to accommodate short-term forecasts and...

EU Member States are pursuing large scale investment in renewable generation in order to meet a 2020 target to source 20% of total energy sources by renewables. As the location for this new generation differs from the location of existing generation sources, and is often on the extremities of...

We first discuss different rules for pricing and provision of balancing across EU member states and their implications. Some member states face significant transmission constraints inside their pricing zone(s). In principle, this can be avoided with smaller pricing zones and in some instances...

The EU European Trading Scheme (EU ETS) started operating in 2005 and was established with the EU Climate Package of 2008 as a permanent mechanism for Europe. Now in its second phase, policymakers are evaluating its success to date and considering next steps for its evolution. With the ultimate...

Installations covered by the European Emission Trading Scheme (EU ETS) can use credits from the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) to cover a share of their emissions. The CDM credits are generated by low-carbon projects in developing countries that require the CDM support to become financially...

Investment in European electricity transmission requires facilitation at the European level. The rate at which renewable energy is integrated into the power sector over the next decade will necessitate significant transmission infrastructure expansion and upgrades, with clear pan-European...

Decarbonization goals of the European Commission foresee different future scenarios for the European power market of which all are exceeding 60% renewables in the power system.3 High shares of intermittent renewable sources require significant changes to the physical system and impact the...