Liberalization of network industries frequently separates the network from the other parts of the industry. This is important in particular for the electricity industry where private firms invest into generation facilities, while net- work investments usually are controlled by regulators. We...

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...

This paper shows how the effect of fuel prices varies with the level of electricity demand. It analyzes the relationship between daily prices of electricity, natural gas and carbon emission allowances with a vector error correction model and a semiparametric varying smooth coef- ficient model....

This paper conducts an empirical analysis of risk premiums in the German day-ahead Electricity Wholesale Market. We compare hourly price data of the European Energy Exchange (EEX) auction and of the continuous over-the-counter (OTC) market taking place prior to EEX. As OTC price data are not...

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...

Liberalized electricity markets are characterized by fluctuating price-inelastic demand of non-storable electricity, often defined by a substantial market share held by one or few incumbent firms. These characteristics have led to a controversial discussion concerning the need for and the design...

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...

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...

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...

Congestion management schemes have taken a prominent place in current electricity market design discussions. In this paper, the implications of establishing zonal pricing in Europe are analyzed with regard to potential zonal delimitations and associated effects on total system costs. Thereby, a...