During recent international climate negotiations like in Paris 2015, the European Union agreed to reduce the emissions of greenhouse gases. Policy-makers target the residential sector as a major user of fossil energy because potential to improve the energy efficiency in existing houses is...

This paper studies policy instruments that correct insufficient learning-by-doing (LbD) and research and development (R&D) of renewable electricity technologies and insufficient investments in energy efficiency (EE) in the presence of carbon pricing. The theoretical model analysis shows how to...

This paper presents evidence that the accumulating cost of Germany’s ambitious plan to transform its system of energy provision – the so-called Energiewende – is butting up against consumers’ willingness-to-pay (WTP) for it. Following a descriptive presentation that traces the German...

We propose a general taxonomy of the political economy challenges to wind power development and integration, highlighting the implications in terms of actors, interests, and risks. Applying this framework to three functions in China's electricity sector - planning and project approval, generator...

This report contains three separate papers, each addressing selected issues concerning natural gas policy and security of gas supply in Europe. The over-arching themes are vulnerability (to supply disruptions, to supplier pricing power) and fragmentation; and measures designed to overcome them,...

This paper is concerned with the role of oil and gas in the development of the global economy. Its focus is on the context in which oil and gas producers in both established and developing countries must frame their policies in order to optimize the benefits of producing such resources. It...

We propose the use of a three-level random intercept model to measure the degree of environmental policy performance of different countries and to study its determinants. Inspired by the literature on multilevel latent models and Item Response Theory (IRT), this framework treats policy...

The European Council has proposed to stick to a more ambitious GHG target but to scrap a binding RES target for the post-2020 period. This is in line with many existing assessments which demonstrate that additional RES policies impair the cost-effectiveness of addressing a single CO2...

The extraction and processing of unconventional oil is more energy intensive and has larger negative environmental impacts than the extraction of conventional oil. The European Union (EU) estimates that oil sands lead to 22% more emissions than conventional oil. The EU is very concerned by the...