We discuss the implications of two price zones, i.e. one northern and southern bidding area, on the German electricity market. In the northern zone, continuous capacity additions with low variable costs cause large regional supply surpluses in the market dispatch while conventional capacity...

Im Zug der Energiewende sind in den letzten Jahren die Anforderungen an das Stromnetz kontinuierlich gestiegen, insbesondere wird die Optimierung der Nutzung vorhandener Ressourcen durch das sogenannte Engpassmanagement - den Umgang mit Engpässen im Netz - bedeutsamer. Vor diesem Hintergrund...

The German response to the Fukushima nuclear power plant incident was possibly the most significant change of policy towards nuclear power outside Japan, leading to a sudden and very significant shift in the underlying power generation structure in Germany. This provides a very useful natural...

In this paper, we present a straightforward economic model that explains the incentives to manipulate nodal energy prices in a “Day 2” RTO market. The model distinguishes between legitimate market participation that increases overall market efficiency and manipulative behavior that distorts...

Two legal instruments for promoting renewable energy production - renewable portfolio standards (“RPSs”) and feed-in tariffs (“FITs”) - are in use across the globe. Many studies pit these policies against each other, treating them as either-or options. Some analyses suggest that FITs...

Firms and governments often use moral suasion and economic incentives to influence intrinsic and extrinsic motivations for economic activities. To investigate persistence of such interventions, we randomly assign households to moral suasion and dynamic pricing that stimulate energy conservation...

All forms of renewable energy are at an inflection point. Falling costs, changing technology, and new environmental and climate regulations have all moved to exponentially increase the growth of renewable energy. How legal terms, such as "qualifying facility" under PURPA are interpreted and...

In 2008 we founded the Institute for Policy Integrity at New York University School of Law with four overarching goals: to publish scholarship on critical policy issues; to improve government decisionmaking through advocacy; to build the capacity of other organizations to make economic arguments...

The unreliability of electricity supplies is a major cause of the high cost of manufacturing in developing countries. In this paper we are able to measure the cost imposed by power outages and suggest some feasible mitigating measures. The study employs a rich, if not unique, set of data from...

We introduce a framework to evaluate the welfare effects of residential energy efficiency programs and estimate key parameters using a 100,000-household field experiment. Results generally contradict conventional wisdom: there is no evidence of informational or behavioral market failures,...