We examine the impact of liberalization, energy efficiency, renewable energy, and security of supply legislations on the risk-return profiles of European energy utilities over the period 1996 to 2013. Results show that, after controlling for equity market and commodity risk factors, the EU...

In Germany, substantial drops in wholesale power prices have become a regular phenomenon. While such price drops have far-reaching implications for the functioning of the power market, their underlying determinants remain poorly understood. To fill this gap, we propose a Markov regime-switching...

Renewable portfolio standards (RPS) are the most popular U.S. state-level policy tools for promoting deployment of electricity from renewable energy (RES-E). While several econometric studies have estimated the effect of RPS policies on RES-E deployment, results are sometimes contradictory....

Electricity resource adequacy is the most urgent and controversial challenge facing the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) market. The policy discussions have neglected some very simple steps that could be taken to promote demand response and reduce peak demand. An allocation of some...

This working paper provides details of the Australian National Electricity Market (ANEM) model version 1.10 used in the research project titled: An investigation of the impacts of increased power supply to the national grid by wind generators on the Australian electricity industry. The paper...

We analyze the design of policies to promote efficient distributed generation (DG) of electricity. The optimal policy varies with the set of instruments available to the regulator and with the prevailing DG production technology. DG capacity charges often play a valuable role in inducing optimal...

We measure the degree of market power execution and inefficiencies in Alberta's restructured electricity market. Using hourly wholesale market data from 2008 to 2014, we find that firms exercise substantial market power in the highest demand hours with limited excess production capacity. The...

This article explores key market design issues to be addressed in future electricity markets dominated by intermittent renewable generation with near zero private marginal costs for generating electricity. Changing technology mixes will change market outcomes, but they do not change the...

A common view in retail electricity markets is that retailers discriminate based on consumers' loyalty: loyal consumers pay more. The premium is colloquially known as a “loyalty tax” or “loyalty premium”. Reflecting this understanding Australia's governments, regulators and consumer...

Due to low natural gas prices and the environmental advantages of natural gas combined cycle (NGCC) compared to coal, NGCC is replacing coal generators as the inframarginal providers of electricity. However, on average, NGCCs are running only 54 percent of the time. Utilizing excess NGCC...