Since the 1990s, efficiency and benchmarking analysis has increasingly been used in network utilities research and regulation. A recurrent concern is the effect of environmental factors that are beyond the influence of firms (observable heterogeneity) and factors that are not identifiable...

In the aftermath of the nuclear catastrophe in Fukushima, German nuclear policy has been reconsidered. This paper demonstrates the economic effects of an accelerated nuclear phase-out on the German electricity generation sector. <p> A detailed optimization model for European electricity markets is...</p>

In this paper, we develop a methodology for deriving a consistent measure for supply adequacy in the power generation sector. We especially consider the secured generation capacity of intermittent renewable energy sources such as wind. <p> Availability of conventional power plants is estimated...</p>

In this work we demonstrate the effects of different Chinese transport infrastructure investment strategies on long run marginal costs of steam coal supply in Europe. <p> Increasing Chinese demand for steam coal will lead to a growing need for additional domestic infrastructure in China as...</p>

This paper studies the interdependency of a spot electricity market and a market for incremental reserve capacity in a competitive setting, where a continuum of firms supplies both markets. It is proved that a simultaneous competitive equilibrium on both markets exists in the stylised model...

The European Commission has intensively discussed the mandatory separation of natural gas transmission from production and services. However, economic theory is ambiguous on the price effects of vertical separation. In this paper, we empirically analyse the effect of ownership unbundling of...

Supervised dimension reduction methods have been extensively applied in different scientific fields like biology and medicine in recent years. However, they have hardly ever been used in micro economics, and in particular cost function modeling. Nonetheless, these methods can also be useful in...

The German Energiewende’s potential effects on the reliability of electricity supply as well as the corresponding economic consequences have recently entered both the political and scientific debate. However, empirical evidence of power outage costs in Germany is rather scarce. Following a...

Several countries around the world have introduced reforms to the electric power sector. One important element of these reforms is the introduction of an unbundling process, i.e., the separation of the competitive activities of supply and production from the monopole activity of transmission and...

We study two electricity markets connected by a fixed amount of crossborder capacity. The total amount of capacity is known to all electricity traders and allocated via an auction. The capacity allocated to each bidder in the auction remains private information. We assume that traders are faced...