the impact of possible climate catastrophes on global warming policy abstract recent studies on global warming have introduced the inherent uncertainties associated with the costs and benefits of climate policies and have often shown that abatement policies are likely to be less aggressive or postponed in comparison to those resulting from traditional cost benefit analyses cba yet those studies have failed to include the possibility of sudden climate catastrophes the aim of this paper is to account simultaneously for possible continuous and discrete damages resulting from global warming and to analyse their implications on the optimal path of abatement policies our approach is related to the new literature on investment under uncertainty and relies on some recent developments of the real option in which we incorporated negative jumps climate catastrophes in the stochastic process corresponding to the net benefits associated with the abatement policies the impacts of continuous and discrete climatic risks can therefore be considered separately our numerical applications lead to two main conclusions i gradual continuous uncertainty in the global warming process is likely to delay the adoption of abatement policies as found in previous studies with respect to the standard cba however ii the possibility of climate catastrophes accelerates the implementation of these policies as their net discounted benefits increase significantly

it s not now or never implications of investment timing and risk aversion on climate adaptation to extreme events abstract public investment into risk reduction infrastructure plays an important role in facilitating adaptation to climate impacted hazards and natural disasters in this paper we provide an economic framework to incorporate investment timing and insurance market risk preferences when evaluating projects related to reducing climate impacted risks the model is applied to a case study of bushfire risk management we find that optimal timing of the investment may increase the net present value npv of an adaptation project for various levels of risk aversion assuming risk neutrality while the market is risk averse is found to result in an unnecessary delay of the investment into risk reduction projects the optimal waiting time is shorter when the insurance market is more risk averse or when a more serious scenario for climatic change is assumed a higher investment cost or a higher discount rate will increase the optimal waiting time we also find that a stochastic discount rate results in higher npvs of the project than a discount rate that is assumed fixed at the long run average level

why does the combination of the european union emissions trading scheme and a renewable energy target makes economic sense abstract the european climate and energy mix of targets and policies has been criticised by many economists in particular it is often argued that the renewable energy targets do not make economic sense because they represent an expensive option to reduce co2 emissions within a cap and trade scheme such as the european union emissions trading scheme eu ets in addition it has also been claimed that support for renewable electricity deployment negatively interacts with the eu ets having a dampening effect on the co2 price which favours the dirtiest technologies and is detrimental for the greener ones in this article we argue that this mainstream economic view is short sighted and that a multidisciplinary economic analysis of the climate and energy policy mix is required mainstream economic analysis is based on a narrow approach for the assessment of instrument combinations and neglects relevant insights from several economic disciplines including innovation economics and political economy approaches in reality economic theory supports the combination of an ets and renewable energy targets the existence of different policy goals and market failures the demand pull influence of renewable energy policies on innovation a political economy approach and the different risk exposure of renewable energy technologies call for a policy mix although policy combinations are not a panacea and bring problems on their own the aforementioned negative interaction between renewable energy deployment and the carbon price in the eu ets can be mitigated through appropriate coordination and or instrument choice and design

new light on an old problem reflections on barriers and enablers of distributed energy this viewpoint article new light on an old problem aims to stimulate thought and discussion on pathways to rapid emission reduction trajectories it considers briefly the history of the australian energy system and recent attempts to support emerging distributed energy supply systems before exploring the importance of new energy supply models and how they may emerge organically ahead of further policy and regulatory shifts in australia the article is shaped by extensive primary research literature review and engagement with policy makers industry and community organisations energy market institutions colleagues and others over a period of four years it outlines how new business models may reduce emissions ahead of policy and regulation and the importance of keeping an open mind when considering barriers to distributed energy we hope this article will spark interest and dialogue with colleagues who may be experiencing and grappling with similar challenges

indifference pricing of weather derivatives weather derivatives are difficult to price due to the nontradability of weather and the absence of liquid secondary markets for these contracts we use the concept of indifference pricing to develop a model for calculating the willingness to pay for weather insurance compared with other approaches indifference pricing is less ambitious since it does not attempt to predict a transacted market price the application of indifference pricing in the case of german crop producers shows that their willingness to pay for weather insurance depends on the production program and varies regionally this suggests the development of tailored insurance products copyright 2008 oxford university press

green goals and full employment are they compatible abstract two empirical correlations are studied one between economic growth and environmental impacts and the other between the lack of economic growth and unemployment it is demonstrated that at a global level economic growth is strongly correlated with environmental impacts and barriers to fast decoupling are large and numerous on the other hand low or negative growth is highly correlated with increasing unemployment in most market economies and strategies to change this lead to difficult questions and tradeoffs the coexistence of these two correlations which have rarely been studied together in the literature on green growth degrowth and a growth justifies ambivalence about growth to make key environmental goals compatible with full employment the decoupling of environmental impacts from economic output has to be accompanied by a reduction of dependence on growth in particular strategies to tackle unemployment without the need for growth several of which are studied in this article need much more attention in research and policy

rescaling contraction with a lower cost technology when revenue declines abstract a mature oil field rescaled contraction describes a switch to a technological alternative more appropriate for the depleted state of an underlying resource off shore oil rigs are an illustration since the original technological scale designed for very large output flows becomes inappropriate as the operational efficiency declines later in life and facing a dwindling output flow so a more appropriate extraction technology becomes economic a real option representation is formulated on a stochastic oil price and deteriorating output volume we consider investment divestment decisions both separately and jointly which have different implications for government policies and also option values the resulting model yields analytical or semi analytical results indicating that immediate switching to the lower cost technology could sometimes be hastened as the price volatility increases depending on the current revenue if divestment and switching are considered jointly however greater volatility could also promote hysteresis

installed base and compatibility innovation product preannouncements and predation a good is often more valuable to any user the more others use compatible goods the authors show that this effect may inhibit innovation if an installed base exists and transition to a new standard must be gradual early adopters bear a disproportionate share of transient incompatibility costs this can produce excess inertia the installed base however is stranded if the new standard is adopted this may create excess momentum these dynamic effects have strategic implications temporary price cutting can permanently prevent entry and product preannouncements can be critical in innovation these strategic actions have ambiguous welfare effects

normal markets market imperfections and energy efficiency abstract the conventional distinction between economic and engineering approaches to energy analysis obscures key methodological issues concerning the measurement of the costs and benefits of policies to promote the adoption of energy efficient technologies the engineering approach is in fact based upon firm economic foundations the principle of lifecycle cost minimization that arises directly from the theory of rational investment thus evidence that so called market barriers impede the adoption of cost effective energy efficient technologies implies the existence of market failures as defined in the context of microeconomic theory problems of imperfect information and bounded rationality on the part of consumers for example may lead real world outcomes to deviate from the dictates of efficient resource allocation a widely held contrary view that the engineering view lacks economic justification is based on the fallacy that markets are normally efficient

supplementing an emissions tax by a feed in tariff for renewable electricity to address learning spillovers abstract in the presence of learning spillovers related to renewable energy technologies an optimal strategy to mitigate climate change should complement an emissions tax by a subsidy for renewables this article addresses the question how such subsidy should be designed it is shown that the widely used approach of a revenue neutral fixed feed in tariff can yield an optimal outcome under restrictive conditions only it has to be adapted continuously as the electricity price changes moreover funding the tariff by a surcharge on the electricity price has important implications for the design of the emission tax the optimal tax rate has to be below the pigovian level differentiated across fossil fuels and adapted over time as the patterns of technological development change these requirements may pose a formidable challenge for practical decision making however it is important to point out that the eventual choices made with respect to the design and funding of a feed in tariff have to be based on a careful and more comprehensive policy assessment including inter alia economic effects beyond the electricity sector and existing institutional constraints

the sources of divergent practices in china s nuclear power sector abstract unlike markets that were early developers of reactors which are dominated by single technologies china s nuclear power sector adopts and imports multiple technologies even after the chinese government introduced a policy to develop a standardized unified and technologically advanced nuclear power sector in the early 2000s different technologies continue to be imported this study uses an institutional lens to explore the decoupling of policy intentions and implementation the three phases of nuclear technology imports that occurred between the 1980s and 2010 are examined and compared data are collected from multiple sources including the diary of a major decision maker news articles project websites a regulation database domestic journal articles and interviews with industry experts using interactive content analysis this study identifies the multiple policy principles and goals of different domains that led to different import arrangements and interpretations of the available foreign technology new arrangements do not replace but overlap the existing ones that are perpetuated by the actors who benefit from them the results show that the multiplicity of china s nuclear power sector coupled with the government s late attempts at standardization contributes to diversified policy implementation they provide important policy implications for the sustainable development of the sector

business actors political resistance and strategies for policymakers abstract existing energy policies remain well short of achieving a rapid transformation to a low carbon system of energy supply one of the principal reasons has been political resistance from incumbent fossil fuel industries while numerous studies have demonstrated the influence of business actors across multiple policy domains less work has examined the behaviour of business actors in individual energy centric industries namely the oil gas coal utility and renewable industries accordingly this paper examines the role of business actors in the us energy sector and asks what should policymakers do drawing on new empirical data primarily semi structured interviewers with business actors across the us energy sector this paper argues that there are specific strategies policymakers can employ to help overcome the resistance from incumbent fossil fuel industries specifically these are to entrench and build existing interests via targeted sector specific policies exploit inter industry and intra industry divisions and shift existing interests with policies that induce changes in industry investment and structure

climate change and optimal energy technology r d policy public policy response to global climate change presents a classic problem of decision making under uncertainty theoretical work has shown that explicitly accounting for uncertainty and learning in climate change can have a large impact on optimal policy especially technology policy however theory also shows that the specific impacts of uncertainty are ambiguous in this paper we provide a framework that combines economics and decision analysis to implement probabilistic data on energy technology research and development r d policy in response to global climate change we find that given a budget constraint the composition of the optimal r d portfolio is highly diversified and robust to risk in climate damages the overall optimal investment into technical change however does depend in a non monotonic way on the risk in climate damages finally we show that in order to properly value r d abatement must be included as a recourse decision

optimal timing problems in environmental economics abstract because of the uncertainties and irreversibilities that are often inherent in environmental degradation its prevention and its economic consequences environmental policy design can involve important problems of timing i use a simple two period model to illustrate these optimal timing problems and their implications for environmental policy i then lay out and solve a continuous time model of policy adoption in which the policy itself entails sunk costs and environmental damage is irreversible the model generalizes earlier work in that it includes two stochastic state variables one captures uncertainty over environmental change and the other captures uncertainty over the social costs of environmental damage solutions of the model are used to show the implications of these two types of uncertainty for the timing of policy adoption

innovation policy for directing technical change in the power sector this paper discusses policy instruments for redirecting technical change within the electricity sector to mitigate climate change first we unravel the mechanism behind directed technical change explaining why markets may underprovide innovations in expensive renewable technologies in comparison to innovations in energy efficient fossil fuel generators subsequently we characterize technical change in electricity generation technologies stressing the heterogeneity of knowledge spillovers both within and between clean electricity generation technologies we argue that there exists a rationale for a portfolio approach to innovation in the electricity sector i e optimal innovation policies are neither fully generic nor fully specific and they need to be adapted in response to new information learned by the government the existing innovation literature does not however provide a clear cut answer for designing such a policy we compare policy instruments and argue that public r d support to clean technologies either in the form of subsidies or prizes seems to be the prime candidate for implementing non generic innovation policy

an analysis of australia s large scale renewable energy target restoring market confidence in 2001 australia introduced legislation requiring investment in new renewable electricity generating capacity the legislation was significantly expanded in 2009 to give effect to a 20 renewable energy target ret importantly the policy was introduced with bipartisan support and is consistent with global policy trends in this article we examine the history of the policy and establish that the stop start nature of renewable policy development has resulted in investors withholding new capital until greater certainty is provided we utilise the methodology from simshauser and nelson 2012 to examine whether capital market efficiency losses would occur under certain policy scenarios the results show that electricity costs would increase by between 51 million and 119 million if the large scale ret is abandoned even after accounting for avoided renewable costs our conclusions are clear we find that policymakers should be guided by a high level public policy principle in relation to large scale renewable energy policy constant review is not reform

the efficiency paradox bureaucratic and organizational barriers to profitable energy saving investments abstract the paradox of why profitable energy saving investments are not undertaken continues to provoke debate the underlying phenomenon might be called the efficiency paradox because it represents a case in which business firms which are often presumed or taken axiomatically to be economically efficient make decisions that do not maximize profits new data from one of the us environmental protection agency s voluntary pollution prevention programs enables this paradox to be explored statistically the data show that both the level and variation in returns to lighting upgrade investments cannot be explained by standard economic models substantial gains in energy efficiency can be achieved without sacrificing profitability both economic and organizational factors account for some of the variation in observed returns to these investments but the results suggest a need for improved and more comprehensive theories of the investment behavior of firms and other organizations

uncertainties in future energy demand in uk residential heating fossil fuels are the main source of space heating in the uk and therefore climate mitigation implies a systemic change in space heating systems the challenge is difficult because of an inefficient building stock and high penetration of natural gas we present new quantified scenarios for residential energy use in the uk to 2050 with minimal policy intervention the uk will remain locked into a gas based heating system which would conflict with the policy goal of decarbonisation however there is a range of scenarios in which this is avoided a system heavily reliant on heat pumps powered by low carbon electricity is uk policy makers currently preferred alternative we conclude that some shift in this direction is likely to be required but complete reliance on this solution raises a number of problems greater use of energy efficiency and biomass can also play a significant role these options have different risks but a more diversified strategy would be more prudent we conclude that the future of uk residential space heating is very uncertain but meeting low carbon heating goals is better conceptualised as reducing reliance on gas rather than necessarily mass electrification our analysis has implications for any country with high use of fossil fuels in space heating and ambitious decarbonisation goals

new evidence on the impact of structural reforms on electricity sector performance abstract the evolution of electricity industry over the last decades has shown substantial differences between oecd countries this paper empirically investigates to what extent different structural forms of regulation competition and privatisation explain these international differences it distinguishes three modes of electricity performance a net generation per capita b installed capacity and c labour productivity the empirical model spans the period 1975 2011 and uses panel data econometric techniques our analysis reveals that there is a strongly significant interaction impact on the level of electricity performance between regulation and competition the empirical findings do confirm that a robust independent regulatory scheme must be implemented in order to achieve a competitive electricity market

inconsistency of economic growth and electricity consumption in china a panel var approach abstract china has the largest electricity system in the world which is undergoing a critical market reform based on the panel data in 2000 to 2016 of china this paper tries to explain theinconsistency between electricity consumption and economic growth for example in 2015 gdp growth rate was close to 6 9 but with only 2 9 growth in electricity consumption however in 2018 a 6 6 growth in gdp required an 8 5 electricity growth the results explain the reasons for inconsistency and identify the key factors we find that the increase in inventory fixed capital and industrial electricity consumption will narrow the gap when economy grows faster than electricity consumption and widen the gap on the contrary heterogeneity exists among regions the model and variables seem most convincing in explaining the situation in the western region which is most similar to the full sample of china feedback effect is also observed between electricity consumption and economic growth in most parts of china by granger test the findings provides suggestions for the policy makers in making power planning in an effort to avoid large power shortage or surplus

understanding carbon lock in abstract this paper narrative argues that industrial economies have been locked into fossil fuel based energy systems through a process of technological and institutional co evolution driven by path dependent increasing returns to scale it is asserted that this condition termed carbon lock in creates persistent market and policy failures that can inhibit the diffusion of carbon saving technologies despite their apparent environmental and economic advantages the notion of a techno institutional complex is introduced to capture the idea that lock in occurs through combined interactions among technological systems and governing institutions while carbon lock in provides a conceptual basis for understanding macro level barriers to the diffusion of carbon saving technologies it also generates questions for standard economic modeling approaches that abstract away technological and institutional evolution in their elaboration the question of escaping carbon lock in is left for a future paper

integrated ecological economic and social impact assessment of alternative flood protection measures in the netherlands abstract the main objective of this paper is to combine and integrate environmental economic and social impact assessment procedures in order to support decision making in the context of flood control policy in the netherlands the hydraulic hydrological ecological economic and social effects of alternative flood control policies such as land use change and floodplain restoration are evaluated using a combination of advanced quantitative modelling techniques and qualitative expert judgement the results from the ecological economic and social impact assessment are evaluated in an integrated way through cost benefit analysis cba and multi criteria analysis mca as expected these methods produce different outcomes although traditional flood control policy building higher and stronger dikes is a cost effective option investment in alternative flood control policy land use changes and floodplain restoration can be justified on the basis of both cba and mca when including the additional ecological and socio economic benefits in the long run the outcome of the mca appears to be especially sensitive to the inclusion of the qualitative scores for the expected social impacts of land use change and floodplain restoration an important research question remains how to assess integrate and trade off 1 significantly different types of impacts in a methodologically sound way in both cost benefit and multi criteria analysis and 2 significantly different types and quality of available knowledge and information about these impacts

the need for policy to address the food system lock in a case study of the finnish context abstract the introduction of synthetic fertilizers transformed the food system into the one we know today in the western world the present paper argues that this transformation has become an irreversible self feeding process referred to as food system lock in which threatens planetary boundaries of nitrogen and phosphorus hence the food security in the future a system in a lock in state can undermine its own existence by deteriorating the capacity to cope with upcoming crises of resource scarcity and environmental instability in this paper the roots of lock in are explored and empirically grounded in the historical narrative of the food system transition in finland in the past 60 years the theoretical framework builds on socio technical studies and the economic theory of increasing returns the aim of the paper is to identify through an evolutionary analysis the processes of increasing returns that have become path inefficient and have reinforced the lock in in the food system three separate but interdependent processes in the production in the policy and institutions and in the supply chain create systematic resistance towards sustainability transition these findings indicate that more attention should be paid at the public policies that are currently too narrow in their scope and do not effectively bridge the entire system from food production to consumption public intervention is critical for the unlocking but individuals in the various parts of the food system are those who create new paths

economic growth fossil fuel and non fossil consumption a pooled mean group analysis using proxies for capital this study employs a pooled mean group estimator to examine the nexus between economic growth and fossil and non fossil fuel consumption for 53 countries between 1990 and 2012 the global sample was divided into four categories developed exporters developed importers developing exporters and developing importers the purpose of these categories was to observe whether factors unique to these countries influence the relationship between energy consumption and economic growth with the exception of developing importers evidence of bi directional causality between fossil fuel consumption and real gdp across all subsamples is observed this leads to the conclusion that efforts to directly conserve fossil fuels may harm economic growth in terms of non fossil fuel use the results are more diverse bi directional causality between non fossil fuel use and real gdp is found in the long and short run for developed importers bi directional causality only in the long run for developed exporters negative long run causality from real gdp to non fossil fuels for developing exporters and long run causality from non fossil fuel use to real gdp for developing importers these results lead to the conclusion that other factors have been responsible for the progress seen in non fossil fuel use thus it is concluded that economic growth on its own is insufficient to promote clean energy development there is a need for policy makers to create an environment conducive to renewable energy investment

what happened to efficiency in electricity industries after reforms the last two decades have witnessed widespread power market reforms in both developed and developing countries that have cost billions of dollars among the key aims and assumptions of these reforms there has always been realization of improvements in power sector efficiency this paper questions the validity of this hypothesis using panel data from 92 countries covering the period 1982 2008 empirical models are developed and analyzed the research findings suggest that the impact of the reforms on electricity industry performance is statistically significant but also limited the results imply that after controlling for country specific variables application of liberal market models in electricity industries slightly increases efficiency in power sector besides we detect a positive relationship between reform process and the percentage share of network transmission and distribution losses in total electricity supplied meaning that as countries take more reform steps the network losses as a fraction of power generated tend to increase moreover the study puts forward that income level and other country specific features are more important determinants of industry efficiency than the reform process overall contrary to expectations of substantial increases in sector efficiency the paper concludes that introducing a decentralized market model with competition in the electricity sector has a limited increasing effect on power industry performance

barriers to energy end use efficiency abstract recent findings indicate that some alternative energy promote equity efficiency and self reliance and are both economical and sustainable the asian development bank therefore initiated a case study to formulate energy strategies which could contribute to the solution of both local and global energy problems the study focuses on technical and economic details of energy end uses in india the conclusions some of which are surprising are supported by data from several studies the study recommends a shift to least cost electricity planning improving the available database for and information availability about energy rationalizing energy pricing and related fiscal policies and achieving energy efficiency by judicious investment in and support of energy forms which will be both sustainable and affordable in the long run

globalizing carbon lock in this paper extends the arguments surrounding carbon lock in elaborated in unruh energy policy 28 2000 817 30 2002 317 to countries currently undergoing industrialization it argues that for numerous reasons industrializing countries are unlikely to leapfrog carbon intensive energy development on the contrary carbon lock in may be globalizing and could further constrain climate change mitigation options it is then argued that many policy recommendations ignore carbon lock in possibly limiting their potential for successful implementation the paper then discusses four policy approaches that appear to have advantages given lock in conditions it is recognized however that relative ease of implementation does not necessarily equate with superiority instead it is merely a path dependent outcome of past development decisions pursuing policies on the basis of relative implementation ease may help address the issue of climate change but could also result in sub optimal outcomes along other dimensions of sustainable development

is the merchant power producer a broken model deregulated energy markets were founded on the merchant power producer a stand alone generator that sold its production to the spot and short term forward markets underpinned by long dated project finance the initial enthusiasm that existed for investment in existing and new merchant power plant capacity shortly after power system deregulation has progressively dissipated following an excess entry result in this article we demonstrate why this has become a global trend using debt sizing parameters typically used by project banks we model a benchmark plant then re simulate its performance using live energy market price data and find that such financings are no longer feasible in the absence of long term power purchase agreements

the costs of mitigating carbon emissions a review of methods and findings from european studies abstract conventional wisdom has it that top down studies of mitigation costs are too pessimistic while bottom up studies are too optimistic in examining mitigation cost studies for western europe this paper finds this interpretation to be flawed the paper expands the analytical framework for interpreting mitigation cost studies evaluates the treatment of no regrets options and other input assumptions in the various studies and includes findings from recent integrated top down bottom up modeling assessments not covered in the ipcc report based on these new elements it is found that mitigation costs tend to be overestimated not only in top down studies but also in bottom up studies given this pervasive bias toward pessimism the body of existing mitigation cost assessments for western europe can be read as follows over the next three to four decades a combination of tax shifts market transformation instruments and policies to reform subsidies and internalize non climatic externalities could cut carbon emissions in western europe by 40 50 relative to the base year at no loss or at a gain in gdp averaged over the medium term and including a phase in period an economically optimal rate of implementing western europe s no regrets potentials is found to be in the neighborhood of 2 per year relative to base year levels

disordering fantasies of coal and technology carbon capture and storage in australia abstract one of the main ways that continued use of coal is justified and compensated for is through fantasies of technology this paper explores the politics of carbon capture and storage ccs technologies in australia these technologies involve capturing co2 emissions usually to store them safely underground in a process called geo sequestration in australia the idea of clean coal has been heavily promoted and is a major part of co2 emissions reduction plans despite the technological difficulties the lack of large scale working prototypes the lack of coal company investment in such research and the current difficulties in detecting leaks this paper investigates the ways that the politics of clean coal have functioned as psycho social defence mechanisms to prolong coal usage assuage political discomfort and anxiety and increase the systemic disturbance produced by coal power

not irrational but habitual the importance of behavioural lock in in energy consumption abstract a substantial body of literature has shown that our behaviour is often guided by habits the existence of habits not fully conscious forms of behaviour is important as it contradicts rational choice theory their presence thus calls for the setting of new instruments as they make it unlikely that consumers be capable of exercising control over their energy consumption in reaction to given incentives this is further increased in the evolutionary perspective where the current carbon based socio technical system constrains and shapes consumers choices through structural forces habits being potentially counterintentional they may explain the efficiency paradox in energy as well as the continued increase of energy consumption despite the rising environmental awareness among the population policies aiming at reducing energy consumption should thus specifically address the performance context of habits for instance targeting new residents has proven to be more effective given that their preceding habits have been disturbed the results of our empirical analysis confirm this idea by showing how a change of context makes people more receptive to a proposed measure our analysis of the role played by habits also suggests that individuals do not consider the need to change existing habits as an obstacle even though this is contradicted implicitly in the answers they provided to open questions this unconsciousness is one of the most delicate features of habits and it should thus be accounted for when designing measures given the other characteristics of habits the joint use of feedbacks and commitment strategies appears promising

managing risks from climate impacted hazards the value of investment flexibility under uncertainty abstract incomplete knowledge about climate change and the related uncertainty in climate prediction makes adaptation inherently difficult we introduce a real options framework to determine the optimal adaptation to catastrophic risk that takes into account climate change uncertainty the framework can be used to select the optimal adaptation project from a number of alternative projects or to determine the optimal investment sequence of the considered projects in applying the model to the management of bushfire risk at a local government area we find that the framework can significantly increase the value of adaptation investment above the current net present value and also improve upon deterministic dynamic models we also find that it is important to consider sequential investment to preserve investment flexibility under the uncertainty of climate change when decision makers can afford multiple investment projects the loss associated with the use of a simple net present value rule can be substantial and it is important to use a deterministic dynamic model or a real options model

the future role of photovoltaics a learning curve versus portfolio perspective the current cost disadvantage of photovoltaics pv risks to reduce its relevance in climate policy strategies depending on the used assumptions electricity from pv can become competitive between 2015 and 2040 cost competitiveness is however a conditional criterion and as an alternative to the learning curve perspective the future role of pv in electricity production is assessed from a portfolio theory or capital asset pricing model perspective in this analysis the focus is on the input price risks fossil fuel price volatility can strongly reduce the financial return of conventional generating technologies from a welfare perspective energy planners should try to minimise this risk by adding risk neutral or no risk technologies to their portfolio with an analysis for the year 2025 we illustrate how the addition of renewable capacity to an existing portfolio can lower total portfolio risk without a significant reduction of profitability pv then emerges as an attractive technology especially once the best locations for wind energy are already developed

barriers within firms to energy efficient investments abstract many investments in energy efficiency fail to be made despite their apparent profitability internal hurdle rates are often set at levels higher than the cost of capital to the firm reasons for these practices include bounded rationality principal agent problems and moral hazard the policy implication is that government can simultaneously improve overall energy efficiency and increase private sector productivity by providing informational and organizational services that go beyond the traditional regulatory framework

a literature review of economic studies on carbon pricing and australian wholesale electricity markets abstract with the ongoing development of australian anthropogenic climate change mitigation policies there has been a steady increase in modelling studies undertaken to estimate australian carbon prices and their impact on existing electricity markets this article summarises some of the more prominent studies completed by many of australia s foremost economic modelling firms we developed a simple approach for testing the consistency of these studies and their findings in relation to carbon pass through unfortunately we have established that the studies are entirely inconsistent in their estimation of carbon pass through furthermore we were unable to establish why the estimation of carbon pass through varies so significantly this has important implications for policy makers given much of the compensation to be paid to households and businesses under the clean energy future package is predicated on simple assumptions of carbon pass through based upon our analysis of these economic studies our conclusion is that australian policy makers are best guided by relying upon the numerous a posteriori estimations of pass through in the european union emissions trading scheme ets rather than australian a priori studies

transition to a post carbon society linking environmental justice and just transition discourses abstract the hunter valley in new south wales australia is a globally significant coal mining and exporting region the hunter economy s strong basis in fossil fuel production and consumption is challenged by civil society campaigns employing environmental justice discourses this paper analyses how two civil society campaigns in the hunter region stop t4 and groundswell have countered the regional hegemony of fossil fuel interests from an environmental justice perspective however the discursive dominance of the jobs versus environment frame hinders efforts to build solidarity amongst local environmental justice goals on the one hand and workers and union aspirations for secure quality jobs on the other long term structural decline of global coal markets adds pressure for economic transition we argue that campaigns to open up possibilities for transition away from fossil fuel dependency to a post carbon society can be strengthened by engaging with the just transition discourses that are typically associated with organised labour doing so can create synergy for social change by aligning community and labour movement interests inclusive social movement partnerships around this synergy must address structural disadvantage that creates social and economic insecurity if communities are to prevail over the fossil fuel sector s hegemony

technology adoption in the presence of network externalities we analyze technology adoption in industries where network externalities are significant the pattern of adoption depends on whether technologies are sponsored a sponsor is an entity that has property rights to the technology and hence is willing to make investments to promote it key findings include the following 1 compatibility tends to be undersupplied by the market but excessive standardization can occur 2 in the absence of sponsors the technology superior today has a strategic advantage and is likely to dominate the market 3 when one of two rival technologies is sponsored that technology has a strategic advantage and may be adopted even if it is inferior 4 when two competing technologies both are sponsored the technology that will be superior tomorrow has a strategic advantage

the economics of changing course implications of adaptability and inertia for optimal climate policy this paper reviews evidence that energy technologies and systems adapt over time to accommodate external pressures that technical innovation and systemic change in the energy sector is largely induced by need and restrained by potentially large transitional costs a simple integrated model of optimal greenhouse gas abatement over time is presented in which the abatement cost depends on both fixed and transitional elements it is shown that the optimal current response and long run prospects differ radically between the classical economic case in which the cost of a given cutback in emissions is fixed exogenously and the adaptive case in which the response is ultimately adaptive but heavily constrained by inertia ie low fixed but high transitional cost if energy systems are indeed to a large degree adaptive the results demonstrate that as compared with the classical non adaptive case long run stabilization of atmospheric co2 may be optimal even with moderate damages from climate change greater near term abatement efforts are justified and the cost of a given delay in response may be several times higher neglect of the issue of induced technical change and other adaptive responses may invalidate the policy implications drawn from most integrated assessment models developed to date

a resource based view of opportunities to transform australia s electricity sector abstract proponents of low carbon transformation face an uphill battle to reconfigure incumbent energy systems against powerful interests protecting the status quo australia s electricity sector is an example of such a system wedded to fossil fuels and backed by much of the country s political establishment this paper addresses the potential for low carbon transformation in australia s electricity sector it explores the complex and uncertain dynamics shaping the sector and outlines how these can be understood through the lens of strategic agency with an eye for opportunities to drive a shift to renewables it reviews the dynamics of change and re stability shaping australia s electricity sector between 2006 and 2015 and applies a resource based view of transformative agency to analyse these dynamics results show the sector suffers multiple stressors and emphasise disruptive changes in the pipeline critically many of these transformative dynamics stem from factors outside the influence of the electricity sector and its supporters while results do not point to a clear trajectory or outcome of transformation they indicate the uptake of small scale solar photovoltaic pv systems by households and small business will play a defining role in the sector s future configuration furthermore the exploration of transformative dynamics affecting the electricity sector through a resource based lens shows that many opportunities exist for strategic agents to intervene in support of a disruptive shift to renewables the paper suggests a range of mechanisms that agents could use to undermine the strength of fossil energy in the electricity sector and encourage a shift to renewables

heterogeneous effects of regulation on the efficiency of the electricity industry across european union countries abstract this paper focuses on the relationship between the stringency of regulation oecd indicators and total factor productivity tfp growth in the electricity sectors of 19 european union countries for the period 1994 2007 both the oecd regulatory indicator and the tfp growth index have been decomposed in order to bring to light a complex picture of interrelations in which the negative impact of the overall regulation on productivity is the result of opposite forces estimation results tell us that only the stringency of entry regulation significantly reduces technological change whereas vertical integration exhibits a negative and significant impact only on the catching up process pure efficiency change lastly we found an interesting result concerning the explanatory variables of the scale efficiency change in this case only public ownership matters in other terms high levels of public in the structure ownership of electric companies guarantee improvements in reaching the optimal scale of production these heterogeneous effects are also confirmed when we use a different measure of efficiency that is the distance of the actual from the optimal reserve margin

vertical integration credit ratings and retail price settings in energy only markets navigating the resource adequacy problem abstract energy only markets are prone to the resource adequacy problem i e the timely entry of new plant the reason for this is that competitive energy only markets struggle to be remunerative given reliability constraints and market price caps historically australia s 45 000 mw national electricity market has managed to navigate this well understood problem albeit with government entities directly or indirectly responsible for a surprisingly large 73 of all new plant investments to 2007 but government involvement in direct investment has now ceased so what will enable the industry to navigate the resource adequacy problem into the future quite simply industrial organisation the presence of merchant utilities with investment grade credit ratings and setting any regulated retail prices or price to beat with an lrmc floor

a low carbon industrial revolution insights and challenges from past technological and economic transformations recent efforts to promote a transition to a low carbon economy have been influenced by suggestions that a low carbon transition offers challenges and might yield economic benefits comparable to those of the previous industrial revolutions this paper examines these arguments and the challenges facing a low carbon transition by drawing on recent thinking on the technological economic and institutional factors that enabled and sustained the first british industrial revolution and the role of general purpose technologies in stimulating and sustaining this and subsequent industrial transformation processes that have contributed to significant macroeconomic gains these revolutions involved profound long drawn out changes in economy technology and society and although their energy transitions led to long run economic benefits they took many decades to develop to reap significant long run economic benefits from a low carbon transition sooner rather than later would require systemic efforts and incentives for low carbon innovation and substitution of high carbon technologies we conclude that while achieving a low carbon transition may require societal changes on a scale comparable with those of previous industrial revolutions this transition does not yet resemble previous industrial revolutions a successful low carbon transition would however amount to a different kind of industrial revolution

a non gaussian panel time series model for estimating and decomposing default risk we model 1981 2005 quarterly default frequencies for a panel of u s firms in different rating and age classes from the standard and poor database the data are decomposed into systematic and firm specific risk components where the systematic component reflects the general economic conditions and the default climate we need to cope with the shared exposure of each age cohort industry and rating class to the same systematic risk factor strongly non gaussian features of the individual time series possible dynamics of an unobserved common risk factor changing default probabilities over the age of the rating and missing observations we propose a non gaussian multivariate state space model that deals with all of these issues simultaneously the model is estimated using importance sampling techniques that have been modified to a multivariate setting we show in a simulation study that such a multivariate approach improves the performance of the importance sampler in our empirical work we find that s

on intermittent renewable generation the stability of australia s national electricity market abstract energy only markets have an inherently unstable equilibrium even under ideal conditions because participants are unable to optimise voll events the addition of intermittent renewable generation is thought to make conditions harder in this article optimal voll events in an islanded nem region is modelled by substituting high price caps for boiteux capacity charges then analysing the impact of adding progressively more variable renewable energy vre up to 35 market share spot market conditions prove stable and tractable provided thermal plant exit and adjust perfectly but vre asset allocation is important absent highly elastic demand or ultra low cost storage solar pv market share has economic limits because the technology rapidly cannibalises itself furthermore as vre rises in imperfectly interconnected regions a tipping point appears to exist where hedge markets enter an unstable zone through shortages of asset backed firm intra regional swaps and caps government initiated cfds for vre need to be designed carefully to ensure any instability is not exacerbated by extracting contracts from an already shortening hedge market

the large scale solar feed in tariff reverse auction in the australian capital territory australia abstract feed in tariffs fits offer renewable energy developers significant investor certainty but sometimes at the cost of being misaligned with generation costs reverse fit auctions where the fit rights for a predetermined capacity are auctioned can overcome this problem but can be plagued by non delivery risks particularly of competitively priced proposals in 2012 and 2013 the australian capital territory act government in australia conducted a fit reverse auction for 40 mw of large scale solar generating capacity the first such auction undertaken in the country the auction was highly competitive in relation to price and demonstrating low delivery risks proposal capital costs particularly engineering procurement and construction costs as well as internal rates of return were lower than expected the auction process revealed limited land availability for large scale solar developments in the act as well as a significant perceived sovereign risk issue the auction process was designed to mitigate non delivery risk by requiring proposals to be pre qualified on the basis of delivery risk before considering fit pricing the scheme is likely to be used by the act government to support further large scale renewable energy development as part of its greenhouse gas reduction strategy which is underpinned by a 90 per cent by 2020 renewable energy target

the impact of regulatory governance and privatization on electricity industry generation capacity in developing economies this article assesses whether a regulatory law and higher quality regulatory governance are associated with superior outcomes in the electricity industry the analysis for 28 developing economies over 1980 2001 draws on theoretical and empirical work on the impact of telecommunications regulators in developing economies controlling for privatization and competition and allowing for country specific fixed effects both regulatory law and higher quality regulatory governance are positively and significantly associated with higher per capita generation capacity this positive impact increases for more than 10 years as experience develops and regulatory reputation grows the results are robust to estimating alternative dynamic specifications including error correction models to inclusion of economy governance political risk indicators and to controlling for possible endogeneity biases the article concludes with a short discussion of causality in panel data modeling of governance models and the policy

adjusting to climate change implications of increased variability and asymmetric adjustment costs for investment in water reserves abstract in this paper we study the determination of optimal water storage capacity in a region taking into account that the supply of the resource the flow into the reserve is uncertain that a measure of the uncertainty the variance is likely to increase with climate change that building capacity is costly and that the development of water resources may entail alsoenvironmental costs we find that water storage capacity in the long run ispositivelyrelated to increases in uncertainty if the marginal benefit of water withdrawal isconvexand that for the case of costly reversibility of investment a range of inaction for investment appears and the stability of water storage capacity with respect to changes in variance increases

determining commercially viable two way and one way contract for difference strike prices and revenue receipts abstract in this article we investigate the role that a contract for difference cfd might play in increasing investment in renewable energy in australia two cfd schemes are investigated two way and one way cfd a financial model is developed that determines commercially viable cfd strike prices account is taken of revenue from wholesale electricity market and renewable energy certificate sales capital and operational costs of the project including distribution of funds to holders of equity and debt are also included findings based on analysis of the solar array located at the university of queensland gatton campus in australia is presented employing a typical meteorological year framework the major finding was that government will prefer a two way cfd scheme and single axis tracking solar pv array technology in contrast project proponents will strongly prefer a one way cfd design

financing alternative energy projects an examination of challenges and opportunities for local government abstract local government in australia has a strong collective capacity to reduce ghg emissions through policies funding allocation to renewable energy projects and the delivery of programs and services this study examines the institutional capacity of councils in sydney and how this impacts on decisions to invest in alternative energy projects we find greenhouse gas emission targets of councils are strongly aligned to national targets but do not reflect the local council s institutional capacity political leadership or strategic priorities energy reduction projects are often identified and undertaken by environmental staff without support from financial staff or financial evaluation tools an absence of national guidelines to provide consistency in tracking and reporting limits cross sector benchmarking street lighting contributes to a significant proportion of council s total electricity expenditure and ghg emission profile being highly regulated existing contracts and the current practice of street lighting services limits the councils ability to reduce emissions based on our analysis we recommend a number of measures to overcome these constraints including the use of financial evaluation tools for small scale renewable energy projects a standardised national tracking and reporting platform to facilitate progress reporting and meaningful comparative analysis between councils and policy reform to the regulation of street lighting

recent evolutionary theorizing about economic change this famous passage from marshall s principles of economics it first appeared in the fifth edition which came out in 1907 nicely brings out two issues which are as germane to economics today as they were when marshall wrote the first is the heavy reliance by economists in their formal theorizing on the notion of equilibrium the other is the appeal that biological conceptions3x201d have for many economists particularly when their focus is on economic change

how the global and national levels interrelate in climate policymaking foreign policy analysis and the case of carbon capture storage in norway s foreign policy abstract states struggle to develop adequate climate change mitigation policies especially when national energy interests conflict with collective environmental concerns it is therefore crucial to understand how viable solutions may find political support on these terms as one such case this paper examines norway s explicit foreign policy to promote carbon capture and storage ccs as a mitigation measure i suggest that a foreign policy analysis framework with a norm centered constructivist focus allows for new insights into how climate policies function as balancing strategies between external normative pressures and important domestic concerns it reveals how norway s ccs policy represents an extraordinary effort to bridge seemingly contradictory agendas the norwegian ccs case highlights how a state may engage in innovative foreign political engineering to promote solutions to its international climate commitments on terms that fit national energy needs it shows that climate political success may depend on successfully linking the international and domestic levels by simultaneously appealing to established norms within each system

concentration in the european electricity industry the internal market as solution abstract this article offers an analysis of the present competitive and regulatory framework of the european electricity sector and the results achieved with the liberalisation process considering the reactions of incumbents to the liberalisation the focus in this work is mainly on the problem of market concentration in the sector the new trends toward the creation of national champions as well as recent mergers between gas suppliers and electricity producers raise serious concerns about abuses of market power and risk of future collusion in particular the strategic linkage of existing markets and the expansion into new ones are analyzed in the light of the multimarket contact theory considering investment in interconnection among member states the internal market issue is investigated as a solution to the risks coming from liberalisation

the climate change challenge and transitions for radical changes in the european steel industry this paper presents ideas pertaining to transitions that are envisaged in the steel industry from cleaner production cp to systems innovation limits of the socio technical system and the climate change challenge will induce changes in the production distribution and consumption patterns of steel and other materials insights from industrial economics and evolutionary theory on innovation for sustainable development are needed to assess the rationale behind the adoption and diffusion of new breakthrough technologies named ultra low co2 steel making ulcos evolution in material consumption patterns deserves a special research agenda which focuses upon the long term evolution of the consuming sectors as major changes in the infrastructure and products that support our many energy dependent services mobility shelter heat light etc are expected these changes will be significantly amplified by greenhouse gas emission constraints

the socio technical transition of distributed electricity storage into future networks system value and stakeholder views whole system models for the gb electricity system suggest that distributed electricity storage has the potential to significantly reduce the system integration cost for future system scenarios from a policy perspective this poses the question why this value should not be realised within existing market structures opinion among stakeholders is divided some believe that storage deployment constitutes a special case in need of policy support others insist that markets can provide the necessary platform to negotiate contracts which reward storage operators for the range of services they could provide this paper seeks to inform this debate with a process of stakeholder engagement using a perspective informed by socio technical transition literatures this approach allows the identification of tensions among actors in the electricity system and of possibilities for co evolution in the deployment of storage technologies during a transition towards a low carbon electricity system it also draws attention to policy related challenges of technology lock in and path dependency resulting from poor alignment of incumbent regimes with the requirements for distributed electricity storage

renewable electricity generation in germany a meta analysis of mitigation scenarios german energy policy targets envision a share of electricity from renewable energy sources res e of at least 80 in 2050 how can the transformation of the german electricity sector be achieved and at what costs this paper addresses these questions by means of a meta analysis of 10 recent model based mitigation scenarios for germany it turns out that the scenarios exploit the three basic strategic options of increasing the share of res e domestic res e generation electricity demand reductions and res e imports to substantially different extents domestic res e generation increases in all scenarios particularly from onshore and offshore wind scenarios that rely heavily on reducing electricity demand require a relatively low expansion of domestic res e generation despite detailed technical analyses insights on the costs of the transformation remain limited a discussion of underlying scenario assumptions reveals that it is unclear whether i res e and system integration technology development will be as cost competitive as postulated ii implicitly assumed institutional requirements will be realized and iii relevant actors in the transformation process will be incentivized accordingly therefore future research should pursue a thorough assessment of strategic options for transforming the german electricity system that consistently integrates technologies institutions and actors

in the transformation of energy systems what is holding australia back abstract australia has had a strong gdp growth rate is endowed with a diversity of renewable energy resources yet has been unable to unshackle its dependency on fossil fuels our study identifies causes underlying australia s underachievement in its transformation towards a renewable energy economy we apply a combined mixed methods case study and multi criteria analysis to evaluate the greenhouse gas emissions and energy targets policies and programs of four australian prime ministers between 1996 and 2015 we identify four high impact factors that contribute to australia s underachievement the prime minister s political stance on climate and energy is critical in setting the direction of government the absence of target driven policy frameworks results in less effective policy outcomes orderly and cost effective energy system transformation requires bipartisan strategic long term planning and substantial capital investment to provide policy certainty and stability that can induce new investment in renewable technologies and industries energy policy is primarily a political and ideological issue not one driven by underlying economic conditions going forward australia must achieve a bipartisan position on climate and energy policy at both federal and state levels this will provide long term certainty and stability to support investment in renewable energy and so doing achieve international emission reduction obligations

the two faces of market support how deployment policies affect technological exploration and exploitation in the solar photovoltaic industry the recent years have seen a strong rise in policies aiming to increase the diffusion of clean energy technologies while there is general agreement that such deployment policies have been very effective in bringing technologies to the market it is less understood how these policies affect technological innovation to shed more light on this important question we conducted comparative case studies with a global sample of 9 firms producing solar photovoltaic pv modules complemented by in depth interviews with 16 leading pv industry experts we propose that on the one hand policy induced market growth serves as an important catalyst for innovative activity as it raises the absolute level of firm investments in technological exploration on the other hand however deployment policies create an incentive for firms pursuing more mature technologies to shift their balance between exploitation and exploration toward exploitation firms focusing on less mature technologies cannot tap the potentials of exploitative learning to the same extent as those with more mature technologies therefore stimulating strong market growth may raise the barrier to market entry for less mature technologies we conclude that when designing deployment policies great care should be taken to avoid adverse effects on technological diversity and a premature lock in into more established technologies

using renewables to hedge against future electricity industry uncertainties an australian case study abstract a generation portfolio modelling was employed to assess the expected costs cost risk and emissions of different generation portfolios in the australian national electricity market nem under highly uncertain gas prices carbon pricing policy and electricity demand outcomes were modelled for 396 possible generation portfolios each with 10 000 simulations of possible fuel and carbon prices and electricity demands in 2030 the lowest expected cost generation portfolio includes 60 renewable energy increasing the renewable proportion to 75 slightly increased expected cost by 0 2 mwh but significantly decreased the standard deviation of cost representing the cost risk increasing the renewable proportion from the present 15 to 75 by 2030 is found to decrease expected wholesale electricity costs by 17 mwh fossil fuel intensive portfolios have substantial cost risk associated with high uncertainty in future gas and carbon prices renewables can effectively mitigate cost risk associated with gas and carbon price uncertainty this is found to be robust to a wide range of carbon pricing assumptions this modelling suggests that policy mechanisms to promote an increase in renewable generation towards a level of 75 by 2030 would minimise costs to consumers and mitigate the risk of extreme electricity prices due to uncertain gas and carbon prices

bad eggs learning by doing and the choice of technology we model long run economic development through technology adoption under scientific uncertainty about environmental effects there are four possible long run equilibria in a socially planned economy high growth adopt rapidly but abandon damaging technologies once revealed ddt cfcs cautious brake the introduction of new technologies to avoid mistakes genetically modified organisms no growth halt technological progress to preserve secondary knowledge and collapse adopt rapidly without ever abandoning damaging technologies in the base parameterization a short sighted social planner chooses the cautious strategy a far sighted planner chooses the high growth strategy unless damages are irreversible in which case the cautious strategy again dominates regulatory options in the market economy are investigated pollution taxes do not affect the firm s level of precaution if they can only be applied after the adopting firm has reaped the benefits however they do encourage the abandonment of damaging technologies liability rules do affect precaution but may lead to excessive caution or even a no growth trap

from malthus to sustainable energy theoretical orientations to reforming the energy sector abstract the main purpose of this article is to consider macro level theories for understanding the urge for reform as well as the process of societal change both in general terms and more specifically within the energy sector the aim is also to consider the energy sector in a wider context and analyse its recent development as a potential part of this reform the scope and logical framework of this article is the following the state of the global environment is approaching a point where the whole of humankind is in danger the article reviews and discusses humankind s limits of existence and dialectics of the human nature relationship by contrasting malthusian and boserupian theoretical views this creates both practical and scientific needs the long societal process of change is discussed according to the three layer 3l model of societal chance the production of energy has traditionally been one of the core issues concerning the effect humankind has on the environment and with regards to potential change related to it reforming the energy sector is in a key position this article reviews and discusses the way the already established renewal of the energy sector corresponds to the 3l model and the diverse potentials of the anticipated further progress

capturing the impact of shocks on the electricity sector performance in the oecd abstract this paper focuses on the responses of electricity performance to shocks arising from structural reform policies with a dynamic panel vector autoregression pvar model that allows endogeneity we decompose the responses of electricity performance measures to shocks generated by the inclusion of structural reform indicators capturing the effect of competition regulation and privatization the sample spans the period from 1975 to 2011 including 30 oecd countries the empirical findings do confirm that a robust independent regulatory scheme must be implemented in order to achieve a competitive electricity market finally the dynamic pvar results using impulse response functions and variance decomposition analysis further support the validity of these results

monitoring choice task attribute attendance in nonmarket valuation of multiple park management services does it matter land management in alpine parks provides multifunctional services to separate groups of users choice experiments can be used to derive estimates of value for different management attri butes however little research has been conducted on how frequently respondents ignore attributes used to describe policy management scenarios we fill this gap using an approach that identifies and compares both serial and choice task attribute nonattendance addressing five different visitor types our results indicate that accounting for choice task nonatten dance significantly improves model fit and yield estimates of marginal willingness to pay with a more plausible pattern of signs and greater efficiency jel q24 q51 i introduction the effects of park management policies on outdoor recreation are increasingly coming under public scrutiny alpine park land is among the most valuable land in terms of outdoor recreation park manage ment decisions are often controversial be cause of differences between objectives pursued by conservationists and the tourist industry parkland management agencies find it increasingly difficult to fund all the services needed to facilitate the ever broad ening variety of outdoor recreation activi ties this is further exacerbated by the increasing expectations for high quality recreational experiences by a population of recreationists with a heightened sensitivity to environmental and conservation issues such a situation widens the scope for multiattribute nonmarket valuation meth ods especially for those methods capable of capturing and modeling the preferences of heterogeneous visitors who seek to pursue a variety of activities in the land under study our research reports the results of a study designed to address attribute nonattendance henceforth abbreviated as an a which despite being quite a common decision heuristic has only recently begun to be explored by analysts with this decision heuristic respondents ignore some of the described attributes in their evaluation of alternatives within a given choice task they hence act as if a zero weight were assigned to the ignored attributes in the utility of the respective alternatives we study this issue by using a well known statistical model of discrete choice the multinomial logit mnl model this random utility model is often used for the purpose of multi attribute nonmarket valuation but the effects of accounting for an a are still rela tively unexplored information on an a is commonly collected by questioning each respondent at the end of the sequence of choice tasks respondents are asked to list those attributes that they feel they have

developing pathways for energy storage in the uk using a coevolutionary framework abstract a number of recent techno economic studies have shown that energy storage could offer significant benefits to a low carbon uk energy system as it faces increased challenges in matching supply and demand however the majority of this work has not investigated the real world issues affecting the widespread deployment of storage this paper is designed to address this gap by drawing on the systems innovation and socio technical transitions literature to identify some of the most important contextual factors which are likely to influence storage deployment specifically it uses a coevolutionary framework to examine how changes in ecosystems user practices business strategies institutions and technologies are creating a new selection environment and potentially opening up the energy system to new variations of storage for both electricity and heat the analysis shows how these different dimensions of the energy regime can coevolve in mutually reinforcing ways to create alternative pathways for the energy system which in turn have different flexibility requirements and imply different roles for storage technologies using this framework three pathways are developed user led decentralised and centralised which illustrate potential long term trajectories for energy storage technologies in a low carbon energy system

electricity prices and public ownership evidence from the eu15 over thirty years abstract this paper studies the impact of corporate ownership on residential net of tax electricity prices when the ownership effect is separated from the liberalisation effect and from other drivers of change after a discussion of a simple conceptual model and of earlier literature we use iea and oecd data for the eu15 over nearly three decades panel econometrics suggests that after controlling for other factors public ownership is associated with lower residential net of tax electricity prices in western europe the impact of liberalisation on prices is smaller and more uncertain