Highly volatile electricity prices are becoming a more frequent and unwanted characteristic of modern electricity wholesale markets. But low demand elasticity, mainly the result of a lack of incentives and consumers’ inability to control demand, means that consumer behaviour is not reflected...

Electric power in OECD countries is mostly produced by large central generating stations, then transmitted along high voltage lines to local distribution systems that carry it to final consumers. Distributed generation plants are different. They produce power on an electricity consumer’s own...

Economic textbooks predict that taxes and emission trading systems are the cheapest way for societies to reduce emissions of CO2. This book shows that this is also the case in the real world. It estimates the costs to society of reducing CO2 emissions in 15 countries using a broad range of...

Producing electricity from renewable energy sources has undeniable appeal, both for environmental reasons and for reducing our dependence on fossil fuels. This book assesses the outlook for six leading renewable energy technologies: small hydro power, solar photovoltaic, concentrating solar...

Current trends in energy supply and use are unsustainable – economically, environmentally and socially. Without decisive action, energy-related greenhouse-gas (GHG) emissions would lead to considerable climate degradation with an average 6°C global warming. We can and must change the path we...

Renewable energy has received high levels of attention in recent years as an alternative to traditional hydrocarbons.  Governments, industry and consumers have adopted and promoted renewable technologies in response to concerns about energy security and the environment, and as a solution to...

Feed-in tariffs (FITs) are prevalent support policies for scaling up renewable electricity capacity. They are market-based economic instruments, which typically offer long-term contracts that guarantee a price to be paid to a producer of a pre-determined source of electricity per kWh fed into...

Feed-in tariffs (FITs) are prevalent support policies for scaling up renewable electricity capacity. They are market-based economic instruments, which typically offer long-term contracts that guarantee a price to be paid to a producer of a pre-determined source of electricity per kWh fed into...