economic analysis of investment in the rooftop photovoltaic systems a long term research in the two main markets abstract nowadays due to incentive policies the photovoltaic pv installations become an economically attractive investment the different policies aim to reduce the pv installation costs consequently to the deployment of the market in recent years a progressive price decrease of components for pv installations has occurred according their learning curve every doubling of the volume implies approximately a cost reduction of 20 in order to reduce the burden of the incentive rate on the national budget maintaining the economic margin of the investment attractive for investors a progressive tariff decline has also taken place this paper provides a technical economic analysis of investments in pv systems installed on the rooftop considering incentive policies and applies it to some significant case studies in the countries in which pv market is the most prosperous germany and italy the analysis puts into evidence the past and current economic margins of the pv investments since 2006 to 2012 four case studies from 3 kwp to 1 mwp are examined in detail the profitability indexes in terms of net present value and internal rate of return evaluated throughout incentive duration of 20 years become very interesting above all in italy higher than 100 of the installation cost and higher than 10 respectively since 2009 when an abrupt decrement in installation cost occurred in italy the best profit margins occur for large size pv plants and are poorly counterbalanced by the decline of the feed in tariff up to 2012 when a new framework has given a knock to the investments whereas in germany the best margins happen for medium size pv plants and are well adjusted by the feed in tariff however it is predictable that a cut in german feed in tariff will take place because the profit margins have been higher in last year than in the previous years

effects of a cut off in feed in tariffs on photovoltaic capacity evidence fromgermany abstract we analyze the effects of feed in tariff fit adjustments on installed photovoltaic capacity in germany we find that the current system temporarily accelerates installments and does not countervail over investment therefore we design three alternative fit regimes i constant fits ii linearly decreasing fits and iii fit adjustments related to the changes of photovoltaic panel prices simulations of installed capacities indicate that alternative adjustment mechanisms could be more appropriate to meet the government s installation target moreover we calculate the consumers burden induced by the fits and find that it might be reduced by alternative mechanisms

wind power in the danish liberalised power market policy measures price impact and investor incentives wind power has a strong position at the danish electricity market mainly caused by high feed in tariffs in the 1990s investments in new wind power installations on land however have declined dramatically after the danish electricity market was liberalised in 1999 first the paper describes how policy measures directed towards wind power have been redesigned to match the liberalised market then we estimate the impact of the redesigned tariffs on the electricity prices finally we assess whether the new tariffs make an incentive to invest in wind power the paper concludes that the new tariffs not by itself make evidence for the actual danish recession in new wind power installations after the electricity reform the main causes could include a combination of problems in spatial planning high risk aversion of new wind turbine investors and perhaps more favourable support schemes in other countries

electricity supply security and the future role of renewable energy sources in brazil abstract hydropower is the backbone of the brazilian electricity generation sector even though the use of this resource is advantaged in terms of greenhouse gas emissions last years severe droughts have exposed the country s huge dependency on hydroelectricity brazil s electricity supply system has shown to be vulnerable to electricity shortages and has demanded significant overhaul in order to address its challenges the present paper provides a comprehensive review of the current status of the brazilian electricity sector and discusses diversification of electricity generation mix as a strategy to improve electricity supply security in the country an overview of the main features of the energy sources applied in brazil is also presented through a review of the latest available generation data the central section of this work is a discussion of the main causes of the current crisis and the future role of renewable energy sources in a 10 year perspective

assessing the system and investor value of utility scale solar pv abstract with pressure to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the energy and other sectors policymakers are increasingly seeking to mobilise investment in renewable electricity with support mechanisms the objective of this paper is to assess the value of utility scale solar pv using a multidisciplinary approach in many cases renewable energy strategies are developed by investors and policymakers on the basis of a relatively narrow analysis of costs however as policies should be designed to maximise societal welfare a wider paradigm is needed in decision making this paper argues for an impact assessment of renewable electricity generation that integrates its value from investor utility policy maker and end user perspectives we propose a multidisciplinary approach to the assessment combining engineering production cost estimation with financial and market analysis of utility scale solar pv in ireland the results show that while from an investor s perspective solar pv generation is and will likely remain so for the foreseeable future relatively expensive in a country with low solar irradiation such as ireland there are benefits for the electricity system in terms of reduced wind curtailment and to a lesser extent co2 emissions this demonstrates why the wider costs and benefits of integrating a renewable electricity technology to the system need to be considered in assessment of renewable policy support mechanism policy makers can then seek to maximise the system benefits while minimising the cost of any policy supports

germany s solar cell promotion dark clouds on the horizon abstract this article demonstrates that the large feed in tariffs currently guaranteed for solar electricity in germany constitute a subsidization regime that threatens to reach a level comparable to that of german hard coal production a notoriously outstanding example of misguided political intervention yet as a consequence of the coexistence of the german renewable energy sources act eeg and the eu emissions trading scheme ets the increased use of renewable energy technologies does not imply any additional emission reductions beyond those already achieved by ets alone similarly disappointing is the net employment balance which is likely to be negative if one takes into account the opportunity cost of this form of solar photovoltaic pv support along the lines of the international energy agency iea 2007 energy policies of iea countries germany 2007 review international energy agency oecd paris p 77 we recommend the immediate and drastic reduction of the magnitude of the feed in tariffs granted for solar based electricity ultimately producing electricity on this basis is among the most expensive greenhouse gas abatement options

collateral effects of liberalisation metering losses load profiles and cost settlement in spain s electricity system european energy markets have undergone a major transformation as they have advanced towards market liberalisation and it is vital that the details of these developments be carefully examined the success of liberalisation is based on smart regulation which has been capable of providing solutions to unforeseen events in the process our paper seeks to contribute to existing understanding of the unexpected and collateral effects of the liberalisation process in the power system by examining a natural experiment that occurred in spain in 2009 in that year the electricity supply by distribution system operators disappeared this change in retail market competition as we demonstrate in this paper has had an unexpected effect in terms of the system s balancing requirements we undertake a rigorous assessment of the economic consequences of this policy change for the whole system in terms of its impact on final electricity prices

economic analysis of different supporting policies for the production of electrical energy by solar photovoltaics in western european union countries abstract within various renewable energy technologies photovoltaics pv today attracts considerable attention due to its potential to contribute a major share of renewable energy in the future however pv market development is undoubtedly dependent on the political support of any given country in this paper after a brief analysis of national support policies in pv technology in western european union eu countries the authors perform an economic analysis of the main support mechanisms as implemented in the same countries based on the calculation of the cash flow the net present value npv and the internal rate of return irr indices the analysis shows that in some situations support policies can be inconvenient for the owner of the pv based generation system and that in many cases the differences between the implementation of the same support policy in different countries can give rise to significantly different results the analysis carried out in this work could help to assess the impact of pv energy policies in different western european member states renewable energy companies to identify potential pv markets and investigate the policy landscape across western eu countries

on the competitiveness of grid tied residential photovoltaic generation systems in pakistan panacea or paradox abstract pakistan is experiencing a slow uptake of grid tied residential pv generation systems gtrpvgs despite of steep fall in pv module price higher solar irradiation and enactment of net metering by the government this slow uptake is attributed to the lack of awareness of four major stakeholders namely the house hold utility financier and the policy maker this paper presents a coherent framework that addresses the concerns of the stakeholders using four country specific parameters i e the local solar irradiation pv system costs borrowing and discount rates and electricity tariffs to compute npv irr payback period and levelized cost of electricity lcoe assuming net metering we model the economic payoffs on self consumption and sale of pv electricity at varying net metering rates system sizes load to generation profiles borrowing and discount rates findings suggest economic competitiveness of pv electricity with an irr and payback averaging around 28 and 5 years respectively moreover the lcoe is also found to be significantly lower than the retail rates the findings inform the household and financier on the economic yield utility on efficient tariff setting and government on sustainable policy design finally we argue that gtrpvgs bears huge potential for pakistan suffering from energy deficit unsustainable cost transmission losses and environmental hazards

investment risks in power generation a comparison of fossil fuel and renewable energy dominated markets abstract due to their high capital intensity weather dependent renewable energies res such as solar and wind face considerable investment risks in power markets in addition their uncertain production volumes also affect the investment risks of other plant types through the impact on power prices and residual demand increasing res shares thus potentially increase overall investment risks in power markets which many analysts consider to be a potential problem against this background this paper compares investment risks of different technologies in markets with increasing shares of variable res it further analyses how generation mixes are affected by these investment risks if the risks are evaluated on a stand alone basis or in a plant portfolio context of a private firm for this purpose a stylized investment and dispatch model is used to conduct monte carlo simulations from which risk measures are derived the results show that capital intensive res face the highest stand alone risks since their profits are most affected by the power price risk however the results further indicate that the stand alone risks of variable res decrease with their share in the market because of a negative correlation of output and price risk in addition res have a risk benefit in firm plant portfolios in terms of constituting a hedge against losses of fossil fuel plants this positive portfolio effect however rapidly decreases and becomes negative with increasing res shares in the market

revised feed in tariff for solar photovoltaic in the united kingdom a cloudy future ahead abstract the united kingdom uk started implementing a national feed in tariff fit mechanism on the 1 april 2010 which included specific payment tariffs for solar photovoltaic pv installations however a revised fit rate has been put in place starting from 1 april 2012 applicable to any installations with an eligibility date of on or after 3 march 2012 this paper presents first an overview of solar pv installation in the uk this followed by a general concept of the fit in the uk before analyzing the financial impact of the new fit rate on the consumers similar financial analysis is conducted with selected countries in europe the financial analysis investigates the total profit the average rate of return and the payback period it is found that the new fit rate generates very low profit minimum rate of return and a longer payback period suggesting a downward trend of solar pv uptake in the future

embedded carbon footprint of chinese urban households structure and changes reducing environmental pressure is a major concern for china but despite the improvements in energy efficiency its gross carbon dioxide co2 emissions have maintained an upward trend consistent with the jevons paradox a fundamental shift is thus needed at all levels including the household this paper explores the embedded carbon footprint ecf of chinese urban households associated with activities such as food personal transport communications education recreation health and hygiene it uses an input output model for carbon emissions and 2003 2009 urban household data the results show that the total ecf emission intensity increases when an individual s consumption is higher than 10 000 yuan structural changes are further observed with consumption expenditure above 10 000 food clothing and other survival oriented emissions intensities as well as education health and development oriented emissions intensities reduce transport recreation housing and enjoyment oriented emissions intensities increase or remain stable and the total emissions intensity increases currently per capita consumption expenditure of chinese urban residents exceeds 10 000 and as income continues to rise china will remain on a high carbon track there is a need for better policies management and behavioural change and the study provides some policy suggestions including a carbon quota system to guide individual consumption

electricity prices large scale renewable integration and policy implications abstract this paper investigates the effects of intermittent solar and wind power generation on electricity price formation in germany we use daily data from 2010 to 2015 a period with profound modifications in the german electricity market the most notable being the rapid integration of photovoltaic and wind power sources as well as the phasing out of nuclear energy in the context of a garch in mean model we show that both solar and wind power granger cause electricity prices that solar power generation reduces the volatility of electricity prices by scaling down the use of peak load power plants and that wind power generation increases the volatility of electricity prices by challenging electricity market flexibility

high penetration wind generation impacts on spot prices in the australian national electricity market this paper explores wind power integration issues for the south australian sa region of the australian national electricity market nem by assessing the interaction of regional wind generation electricity demand and spot prices over 2 recent years of market operation sa s wind energy penetration has recently surpassed 20 and it has only a limited interconnection with other regions of the nem as such it represents an interesting example of high wind penetration in a gross wholesale pool market electricity industry our findings suggest that while electricity demand continues to have the greatest influence on spot prices in sa wind generation levels have become a significant secondary influence and there is an inverse relationship between wind generation and price no clear relationship between wind generation and demand has been identified although some periods of extremely high demand may coincide with lower wind generation periods of high wind output are associated with generally lower market prices and also appear to contribute to extreme negative price events the results highlight the importance of electricity market and renewable policy design in facilitating economically efficient high wind penetrations

economic and demographic determinants of household energy use in turkey this paper analyzes several economic and socio demographic factors which affect households energy choices in turkey the data is obtained from the household budget surveys hbs conducted by the turkish statistics institute tuik the multinomial logit model is used to identify households energy choices the most important finding of the study is that monthly income of households or household welfare in general has significant effect on energy choices it is also important to note that ages of persons have influence on energy choices indeed health concerns easiness in use was found as criteria referred to particularly by household heads at age 50 and over when making energy choices as far as settlements are concerned the most salient characteristic of urban dwellers vis a vis rural dwellers is their dominant preference for natural gas while rural dwellers have their choice for more conventional fuels

drivers of electricity price dynamics comparative analysis of spot and futures markets abstract against the backdrop of numerous evidence that variable renewable generation decreases electricity prices and increases price volatility this paper assesses the drivers of electricity prices in spot and futures markets focusing on the german electricity markets we take into account nonlinearities in electricity prices by means of structural breaks and threshold regressions we find that short run and medium long run price drivers differ and more importantly that they vary over time in the case of the spot market the determinants of prices are renewable infeed and electricity demand while in the futures market the main drivers are natural gas coal and carbon prices our results give relevant insights for market participants who seek to optimize procurement selling strategies in the spot market and use the futures market to hedge against spot price volatility which has increased due to a higher renewable generation

what if consumers decided to all go green environmental rebound effects from consumption decisions shifting consumer preferences towards green consumption is promoted by many governments and environmental groups rebound effects which reduce the effectiveness of such actions are estimated for cost saving green consumption choices using australian data cases examined are reduced vehicle use reduced electricity use changing to smaller passenger vehicles and utilising fluorescent lighting it is found that if rebound effects are ignored when evaluating green consumption environmental benefits will be overstated by around 20 for reduced vehicle use and 7 for reduced electricity use rebound effects are higher and environmental benefits lower when more efficient vehicles or lighting are utilised rather than simple conservation actions of forgoing use in addition lower income households have higher rebound effects suggesting that environmental policy directed at changing consumer behaviour is most effective when targeted at high income households an inherent trade off between economic and environmental benefits of green consumption choices is demonstrated the size of the rebound effect and the observed variation with household income is attributed to life cycle analysis lca methodologies associated with the calculation of embodied ghg emissions of consumption goods these results should be therefore be interpreted as the minimum rebound effect to include in policy evaluation

solar photovoltaic power plants in five top oil producing countries in middle east a case study in iran abstract in recent years the challenges of environmental issues sustainable alternatives to fossil fuels increasing energy demand decreasing the profitability of fossil fuels extracted from readily available reservoirs shale formations and tight sands and unsteady and unpredictable energy prices have forced oil producing countries to turn their attention to renewable energies most of these countries are located on the world s solar belt and have an excellent solar availability with an average of 300 320 days of bright sunshine throughout a year there is as a result growing attention to solar energy and especially to the photovoltaics pvs therefore a tremendous progress is witnessed in technology as well as economy through the blooming of new markets in the past few decades the considerable progress in the application of pvs in oil producing countries is closely dependent upon the development of suitable policies and strategies due to the existence of high electricity subsidies and low tariffs of the governments in this context this paper aims to pursue the current progress in pvs in major oil producing countries located around the persian gulf and to discuss the recent advances in the prospective policy of iran as a case study the obtained results show that a minimum of 20 increase in annual electricity rate would guarantee benefit from investments in the pvs power plants under the current economic situation of iran subsequently this study investigates the optimal approaches for the development of the application of pvs in oil producing countries

the impacts of china s household consumption expenditure patterns on energy demand and carbon emissions towards 2050 abstract this paper explores how china s household consumption patterns over the period 2005 2050 influence the total energy demand and carbon dioxide co2 emissions in two baseline scenarios and how it influences carbon prices as well as the economic cost in the corresponding carbon mitigation scenarios to this end we first put forward two possible household consumption expenditure patterns up to 2050 using the working leser model taking into account total expenditure increase and urbanization for comparison both expenditure patterns are then incorporated in a hybrid recursive dynamic computable general equilibrium model the results reveal that as income level increases in the coming decades the direct and indirect household energy requirements and co2 emissions would rise drastically when household expenditure shifts from material products and transport to service oriented goods around 21 000 mtce 1 of primary energy and 45 billion tons of co2 emissions would be saved over the 45 year period from 2005 to 2050 moreover carbon prices in the dematerialized mitigation scenario would fall by 13 in 2050 thus reducing the economic cost

estimating the implied cost of carbon in future scenarios using a cge model the case of colorado abstract using colorado as a case study we develop a state level computable general equilibrium cge model that reflects the roles of coal natural gas wind solar and hydroelectricity in supplying electricity we focus on the economic impact of implementing colorado s existing renewable portfolio standard updated in 2013 this requires that 25 of state generation come from qualifying renewable sources by 2020 we evaluate the policy under a variety of assumptions regarding wind integration costs and assumptions on the persistence of federal subsidies for wind specifically we estimate the implied price of carbon as the carbon price at which a state level policy would pass a state level cost benefit analysis taking account of estimated greenhouse gas emission reductions and ancillary benefits from corresponding reductions in criteria pollutants our findings suggest that without the production tax credit federal aid the state policy of mandating renewable power generation rps is costly to state actors with an implied cost of carbon of about 17 per ton of co2 with a 3 discount rate federal aid makes the decision between natural gas and wind nearly cost neutral for colorado

revisiting long run relations in power markets with high res penetration abstract electricity generation from renewable energy resources res has become increasingly significant to reach eu and emissions reduction targets at the same time one of the main eu policy goals has been the creation of a common internal energy market for europe in this paper we focus on these two issues previously studied separately considering their possible interactions we first analyze the long run relationship between day ahead electricity prices and fuel prices natural gas and coal looking at two samples of years characterized by low and high res penetration then we explore the integration of eu markets we show that the electricity fuel nexus found over 2006 2008 changed dramatically over 2010 2014 for the majority of countries considered in particular the long run dependence of electricity from gas and coal prices is much lower in recent years furthermore our results confirm that the considered eu countries are becoming less integrated as res e increases our findings suggest that nationally implemented policies to support renewables are successful in increasing res penetration but they have lessened the linkage among eu markets then making integration more difficult to obtain

the impact of intermittently renewable energy on italian wholesale electricity prices additional benefits or additional costs abstract most studies of the literature find that the development of renewable energy sources determines a decrease in the wholesale prices some authors use this finding to state that the current subsidies for renewable technologies cannot be considered as excessive by carrying out a hybrid analysis both simulation and ex post empirical analyses of the case of photovoltaic energy in italy this article demonstrates that this result cannot be generalised under market power an increase in pv production can provide benefits in terms of a wholesale price decrease only beyond a specific threshold and especially if combined with other effects otherwise it is likely that pv development could imply an increase in prices therefore on the one hand caution is necessary when using the estimated change in wholesale prices to evaluate the net cost for consumers of the supporting policies for renewables either the simulation based models or the full empirical analyses may be misleading on the other hand if decarbonisation is the main objective the energy policies should be designed in order to assure a deep and balanced penetration of the clean technologies regardless of their estimated transitory impact on wholesale prices and in the meantime reviewing the organisation of power markets

renewable generation and electricity prices taking stock and new evidence for germany and austria abstract economic theory predicts that the increase of renewable electricity production should reduce the price of electricity in the short run which is also known as the merit order effect although the merit order effect is only one of several consequences of renewable production on the electricity system it is crucial to determine its size for the economic evaluation of renewable energies in this paper we present a comprehensive overview of relevant past research results on the price effect of renewables additionally we conduct a new empirical analysis of the price effect of renewable production for the austrian german region a market that clearly qualifies for a merit order effect analysis given its characteristics based on the review and our own analysis we show that the merit order effect varies depending on the region and the assessment method chosen we also find that the size of this effect is less dispersed throughout different markets than previously suggested by the literature

fixed feed in tariff versus premium a review of the current spanish system a b s t r a c t since 1998 the spanish government established a feed in system where res e generators could choose between two alternatives fixed feed in tariff and premium nowadays all res e 1 can be sold in the electricity market getting an additional premium except for solar photovoltaic one important novelty established in 2007 is a cap and floor system for facilities under the premium option the aim of this paper is to analyze and compare these two alternative options fixed fit and premiums which coexist at the same time in spain describe the evolution of both systems and evaluate its performance the introduction of this support system in spain led to very good results in terms of res e deployment the main advantage of the premium option is that it is a scheme integrated in the electricity market one disadvantage is that it can occasionally lead to overcompensation one way to try to avoid it is to set a cap value in order to evaluate the performance of this dual support system not only res e deployment has been assessed but also the policy stability the adequacy of res e production to the electricity demand pattern and the changes in the investors behaviour

costs and benefits of the renewable production of electricity in spain abstract the reduction of pollutant emissions and greenhouse gases as well as the strong energy dependence on fossil fuels gas and fuel oil have among other reasons led many countries in recent years to develop policies to promote and encourage the use of alternative sustainable clean and predictable sources of energy this paper presents an overview of the production of electricity from renewable sources pe res in spain and offers an outline of the current level of development of renewable energy it also reviews the current support system the costs of integrating renewable energy into the electric system as well as the effects of this type of energy on the electricity wholesale market price the gross domestic product gdp the environment human health and employment

on the market impact of wind energy forecasts this paper presents an analysis of how day ahead electricity spot prices are affected by day ahead wind power forecasts demonstration of this relationship is given as a test case for the western danish price area of the nord pool s elspot market impact on the average price behaviour is investigated as well as that on the distributional properties of the price by using a non parametric regression model to assess the effects of wind power forecasts on the average behaviour the non linearities and time variations in the relationship are captured well and the effects are shown to be quite substantial furthermore by evaluating the distributional properties of the spot prices under different scenarios the impact of the wind power forecasts on the price distribution is proved to be considerable the conditional price distribution is moreover shown to be non gaussian this implies that forecasting models for electricity spot prices for which parameters are estimated by a least squares techniques will not have gaussian residuals hence the widespread assumption of gaussian residuals from electricity spot price models is shown to be inadequate for these model types the revealed effects are likely to be observable and qualitatively similar in other day ahead electricity markets significantly penetrated by wind power

environmental and economic analysis of building integrated photovoltaic systems in italian regions abstract solar energy is a form of renewable energy that can be used to combat climate change through an environmentally accepted energy supply policy with support from both private and public consumers there are numerous factors contributing to the definition of the economic and environmental performance of solar energy investments such as average annual irradiation consumers consumption feed in tariff incentive system energy portfolio emissions produced by the photovoltaic system rated power of the individual modules disposable income of the investor availability of surface for the installation of the photovoltaic panels and mission that characterise the project environmental maximisation economic maximisation or self sufficiency of the system during the first year given the particular geographical position of italy the economic profitability and environmental impact of such system were estimated first on the provincial scale and then on the regional scale to delineate the general characteristics that are not caused by a single scenario the indicators used include the following net present value npv internal rate of return irr discounted payback period dpbp discounted aggregate cost benefit ratio bcr and reduction of emissions of carbon dioxide ercd the ultimate objective of the paper is to define the number of photovoltaic pv systems necessary to reach the target of renewable energy production in the above settings a general scenario appropriate to achieve this goal as well as implementing the total wealth generated by this framework and the reduction of co2 emissions resulting from the implementation of that plan will be examined the indicators used are total net present value per capita and reduction of carbon dioxide emissions per capita

analysis of the policy effects of downstream feed in tariff on china s solar photovoltaic industry abstract the chinese government initiated the feed in tariff fit policy for downstream power generation in august 2013 the effectiveness of the downstream fit policy has attracted the attention of academia and government using the quarterly data of listed solar pv companies between 2009 and 2015 this paper provides an empirical analysis regarding the effects of the downstream fit policy we find that 1 the fit policy has significantly enhanced the inventory turnover of listed pv firms and improved their profitability 2 the fit policy has significant effects on the inventory turnover of midstream companies and mixed industry chain companies mainly engaged in downstream operations 3 fit policy is more favorable towards increasing the inventory turnover of private enterprises our results indicate that the fit policy can have substantial effects on the sustainable development of china s solar photovoltaic industry

reliability and economic evaluation of power system with renewables a review abstract the share of renewable energy generation has been increasing as a result of the world wide concern on environmental deterioration and climate change associated with burning fossil fuel due to the stochastic and intermittent characteristics of renewable energy resources assessing the reliability of power systems with renewables has become challengeable and been widely studied for the past several decades this paper provides a review of the studies on the reliability and economic evaluation of power system with renewables it starts from a summary of the key indicators and models for assessing the reliability and economics of power systems different studies are then compared in terms of type of renewables evaluation method application area level of study and country involved through which the main features of past studies are identified we also discuss the relationship between economics and reliability that shows the necessity of evaluating reliability and economics of power system with renewables simultaneously a case study is finally proposed to illustrate the differences between alternative system settings in reliability and economic evaluation it is found that the types and scales of renewable energy generation have significant impacts on system reliability and economics which needs to be taken into account in the development of renewable energy power systems

long term trends in direct and indirect household energy intensities a factor in dematerialisation abstract dematerialisation is assumed to contribute significantly to the alleviation of environmental problems one of the possible causes of dematerialisation is a change in the consumption patterns of households the aim of this article is to analyse changes consumption patterns of dutch households in the period between 1948 to 1996 in order to discover whether these changes haven influenced the energy intensity of society due to the rise in consumption the total household energy requirement per capita grew on average by 2 4 per year over a period of 48 years this figure ignores efficiency changes in the supplying sectors in the same period the total energy intensity of households fluctuated but on average changed from 5 6 to 6 3 mj nlg an increase of 0 25 per year if we exclude the direct energy consumption we find a slight decline in the indirect energy intensity namely from 3 8 to 3 6 mj nlg 0 14 per year no significant trends to a lower energy intensity are found and there is no indication of dematerialisation of the consumption patterns if governments pursue a policy of sustainable development they have to take into account the fact that dematerialisation of the consumption pattern does not seem to be an autonomous process

a review on promoting share of renewable energy by green trading mechanisms in power system abstract in order to promote the development of renewable energy power generation many countries have issued corresponding policies meanwhile some green trading mechanisms have been implemented in power industry and this paper has mainly presented a review on promoting share of renewable energy by green trading mechanisms in power system with a focus on promotion effects of three mechanisms feed in tariff renewable portfolio standard and emission trading scheme apart from a review summaries comparisons and an outlook for future study are also presented our review suggests that feed in tariff and renewable portfolio standard can effectively increase the share of renewable energy power and lead to renewable resource diversity in addition emission trading also provides stimulus for development of renewable energy besides mitigation of carbon emission

effects of large scale penetration of renewables the italian case in the years 2008 2015 abstract italy has experienced a revolution in the electricity production mix in the years 2008 2015 when a large scale deployment of intermittent renewables caused a high volatility of electricity prices stopped the investments in both fossil and renewable power plants and caused a high degree of uncertainty in matching electricity demand and supply the current legislation gives renewable energy the priority of dispatchment producing a significant decrease of the operational hours of all kinds of power plants which caused economic problems to utilities that had started investments in new high efficiency combined cycles before 2008 and reduced the overall efficiency of fossil fired power generation in order to restore the opportunities for further investments in renewable energy systems it is very important to develop long term policies and interventions to improve the capacity to balance the electricity demand and supply

investments and cleaner energy production a portfolio analysis in the italian electricity market abstract the recent climate change global warming environmental disasters and the economic crisis are only the first signs of the failure of an economic system that for too long shows an uncontrolled utilization of the planet wealth the italian electricity market which is strongly dependent on hydrocarbons only in recent years has seen a first attempt to change towards renewable resources for electricity production aimed at self consumption and for feeding into the grid this paper presents an economic analysis whose purpose is to evaluate the profitability of investments in renewable technologies for the production of electricity each renewable source has its own profitability dependent on a number of factors and subject to market fluctuations cost and frequent changes in the incentive policies applying portfolio theory is possible to select the right mix of renewable energy sources and simulate its evolution moreover the presented analysis can be useful for energy planners to select future green scenarios finalized to the reduction of emissions and energy imports through the increasing use of renewable energy

retrospective modeling of the merit order effect on wholesale electricity prices from distributed photovoltaic generation in the australian national electricity market in electricity markets that use a merit order dispatch system generation capacity is ranked by the price that it is bid into the market demand is then met by dispatching electricity according to this rank from the lowest to the highest bid the last capacity dispatched sets the price received by all generation ensuring the lowest cost provision of electricity a consequence of this system is that significant deployments of low marginal cost electricity generators including renewables can reduce the spot price of electricity in australia this prospect has been recognized in concern expressed by some coalfired generators that delivering too much renewable generation would reduce wholesale electricity prices in this analysis we calculate the likely reduction of wholesale prices through this merit order effect on the australian national electricity market we calculate that for 5 gw of capacity comparable to the present per capita installation of photovoltaics in germany the reduction in wholesale prices would have been worth in excess of a 1 8 billion over 2009 and 2010 all other factors being equal we explore the implications of our findings for feed in tariff policies and find that they could deliver savings to consumers contrary to prevailing criticisms that they are a regressive form of taxation

mill s scissors structural change and the natural resource inputs to labour the environmental structural change strategy claims that by shifting our expenditures to economic sectors with lower environmental intensity absolute resource consumption and environmental impact can be lowered environmental input output methodologies for computing these intensities attribute no resource consumption to labour or households because these are not classified as sectors the suggestion that service sectors entail less environmental impact however loses force if a unit of labour contains embodied energy and attributing these inputs to labour drastically reduces intensity variation between sectors relative growth of service sectors has furthermore not been accompanied by decreased resource consumption thus models whose intensity computations cover not only inter firm payments but also labour earnings and household expenditures may have superior predictive power if moreover natural resource and labour inputs to product are incommensurable intensity ratios themselves have perhaps only monetary rather than real significance

interactions between the power and green certificate markets abstract the current trend of liberalising the power markets is combined with ambitious deployment plans for power production based on renewable energy supplies a new policy scheme to ensure this extension has been developed in the form of a green certificate system with a politically determined target of deployment in such a system producers of renewably based electricity receive tradable certificates in proportion to the electricity they produce the producer can thereby sell these certificates and receive additional revenue apart from the power price this paper studies the price and consumption effects of such a system with a simple model we show that the effects are ambiguous this ambiguity is caused by the interaction between the two markets therefore the green certificate system is difficult to manage if the state has parallel energy targets such as a desired deployment of renewably based energy and a stabilisation or reduction of the energy consumption in addition this complicates the regulation through a deployment target of renewably based power production as the regulator has to be aware of the different effects which follow a specific target until now these effects have not been considered in the analyses of the green certificate system when introducing the system even though it might have considerable consequences for the success of the system

distributional costs of wind energy production in portugal under the liberalized iberian market regime abstract wind generation in portugal and spain has grown due to a decrease in technology cost and the availability of renewables electricity generation incentives there is a strong interconnection between spain s and portugal s transmission systems resulting in common prices in both countries however portuguese and spanish producers receive the incentives for producing wind based electricity that are specified in their own national policies resulting in different costs to rate payers in this paper we estimate the costs to portuguese rate payers associated with the current market design and policy incentives to do so we regress hourly spot electricity market prices as a function of hourly wind generation and estimate the resulting feed in tariff costs distributional effects over the various rate payer categories total costs for rate payer are at the minimum level if joint wind generation in portugal and spain increases by 5 5 from what it is today if wind generation increases much further then the costs increase due to the fit overcost increase if wind generation decreases from current levels then costs also increase due to the merit order effect furthermore we find that rate payer categories will endure different portions of the costs with an increase in wind generation penalizing predominantly 20 7 kva rate payers

the use of physical indicators for industrial energy demand scenarios abstract scientific information on the size and nature of the threat of climate change is needed by politicians in order to weight their decisions computerised models are extremely useful tools to quantify the long term effects of current policies this paper describes a new modelling approach that allows formulation of industrial energy demand projections consistent with the assumptions for scenario drivers such as gdp and population in the model a level of industrial production is used as a key variable and we define it in physical units rather than in monetary units the aim of this research is to increase insights that come with long term energy demand scenarios this research clearly shows that physical indicators provide additional insights in scenario analysis the use of physical indicators instead of monetary indicators seems to affect the energy scenarios significantly the differences with monetary indicators are larger in developing regions than in oecd regions we conclude that an integrated energy and materials approach reveals developments that are hardly visible using a monetary approach moreover this research shows the potential and benefits of the use of physical indicators for scenario development

the doping effect of italian feed in tariffs on the pv market abstract in less than six years italy has become one of the leading markets for pv power plants and one of the countries in the world with the largest number of installations and installed peak power such a quick and large growth is due to a series of feed in tariff schemes that have been uncapped until 2012 as a matter of fact any size or any number of pv power plants could be installed during a period of three years since the feed in tariffs are not paid by national taxes but are charged on the electricity bills italian energy users are now due to pay each year a surcharge of 9 billion euros on their energy bills this paper aims at discussing this development by highlighting the benefits but also some significant drawbacks that the application of uncontrolled feed in tariffs has produced

a review of balancing costs in italy before and after res introduction abstract the massive introduction of res in electricity markets is recognized to have induced a merit order effect on wholesale prices while day ahead prices are likely to decline as res e production increases the effects on balancing market sessions are more ambiguous taking into account the northern italian zone characterized by a high solar pv and hydro penetration we provide empirical evidence that balancing quantities decreased while costs increased between two samples associated with low 2006 08 and high 2013 15 res levels we estimate balancing costs for different technologies and compare their dynamics across specific hours we find evidence of increasing balancing prices in particular market conditions that we interpret as a signal of strategic use of real time sessions by conventional producers prone to the merit order effect in the day ahead market we compare our results to those obtained in the german market where on the contrary balancing costs have decreased and postulate that the different market designs may explain these results our findings suggest that the italian policy makers should carefully monitor all trading sessions especially those close to real time to avoid the exercise of market power by few operators allowed to guarantee system security and additionally to promptly adopt a capacity market

integration of renewable energy sources in southeast europe a review of incentive mechanisms and feasibility of investments abstract incentivizing development and deployment of renewable energy sources res but also other low carbon technologies lct has been a successful way of promoting new technologies by creating a feasible investment case and making them competitive with traditional energy sources although different incentive mechanisms exist feed in tariffs have shown to be the best model for accelerating lct development guaranteeing producers preferential prices for the produced electricity over a period of time and enabling them access to the power network to sell inject produced electricity due to these benefits feed in tariff models are the most common model for stimulating res integration in southeast europe the paper reviews the current state of preferential tariffs for res in countries of southeast europe while some countries already have significant installed res capacity others are still in the planning stage the review shows that the amount of installed capacity of a specific technology has a strong impact on the support for the future projects for same technology this comprehensive review of legislative development supporting res as well as technologies preferred in different countries of the region is supported with feasibility assessment of investing in res using the example of two different technology projects wind and photovoltaic analysing the impact of the current tariffs on the return on investment for each country of the region

the merit order effect a detailed analysis of the price effect of renewable electricity generation on spot market prices in germany the german feed in support of electricity generation from renewable energy sources has led to high growth rates of the supported technologies critics state that the costs for consumers are too high an important aspect to be considered in the discussion is the price effect created by renewable electricity generation this paper seeks to analyse the impact of privileged renewable electricity generation on the electricity market in germany the central aspect to be analysed is the impact of renewable electricity generation on spot market prices the results generated by an agent based simulation platform indicate that the financial volume of the price reduction is considerable in the short run this gives rise to a distributional effect which creates savings for the demand side by reducing generator profits in the case of the year 2006 the volume of the merit order effect exceeds the volume of the net support payments for renewable electricity generation which have to be paid by consumers

assessing the strength and effectiveness of renewable electricity feed in tariffs in european union countries in the last two decades feed in tariffs fit have emerged as one of the most popular policies for supporting renewable electricity res e generation a few studies have assessed the effectiveness of res e policies but most ignore policy design features and market characteristics e g electricity price and production cost that influence policy strength we employ 1992 2008 panel data to conduct the first econometric analysis of the effectiveness of fit policies in promoting solar photovoltaic pv and onshore wind power development in 26 european union countries we develop a new indicator for fit strength that captures variability in tariff size contract duration digression rate and electricity price and production cost to estimate the resulting return on investment we regress this indicator on added res e capacity using a fixed effects specification and find that fit policies have driven solar pv development in the eu however this effect is overstated without controlling for country characteristics and is concealed without accounting for policy design we do not find robust evidence that fit policies have driven wind power development overall we show that the interaction of policy design electricity price and electricity production cost is a more important determinant of res e development than policy enactment alone

solar feed in tariffs and the merit order effect a study of the german electricity market abstract this study investigates the merit order effect moe of the recent years implementation of solar power in germany market clearing electricity prices and production levels are compared for the years 2009 2011 and a model for the relationship between the electricity price and price sensitive electricity production is developed and applied to predict electricity prices in germany from july 2010 to july 2011 with and without solar electricity generation seg the results show that the seg has caused a 7 reduction in average electricity prices for this period the average daily maximum price and daily price variation are also found to decrease by 13 and 23 respectively when taking the moe into account the net consumer s cost of the solar feed in tariff fit system is found to be 23 less than the charge listed in the electricity bill the german fit policy for solar power has been subject to considerable public debate and a common argument brought up in disfavor of the system is the high cost for the consumers in this study we demonstrate the importance of including the moe when evaluating the total costs and benefits of the fit policy mechanism

the impact of renewables on electricity prices in germany an update for the years 2014 2018 abstract increasing electricity prices for private consumers manifested the idea of price boosting renewable energy sources in germany s public opinion literature however widely concurs that wind and photovoltaics have a reducing effect on spot market electricity prices the underlying merit order effect led to historically low exchange prices in the past years to quantify this effect this study analyses historic demand and supply curves from the german day ahead market to reconstruct electricity prices without the feed in of wind and photovoltaics from 2014 to 2018 results show that renewable energy sources considerably reduced electricity prices by between 2 89 ct kwh in 2014 to 8 89 ct kwh in 2017 this allowed german end consumers to save a total of 40 billion from 2014 to 2018 additionally wind and pv contributed significantly to security of supply demand could not have been met by domestic conventional and nuclear generation capacities in up to 424 hours in 2018 the study highlights the necessity to further speed up the expansion of wind and photovoltaics

the impact of renewable energies on eex day ahead electricity prices in this paper we analyze the impact of renewable energies wind and photovoltaic on the formation of day ahead electricity prices at eex we give an overview of the policy decisions concerning the promotion of renewable energy sources in germany and discuss their consequences on day ahead prices an analysis of electricity spot prices reveals that the introduction of renewable energies enhances extreme price changes in the frame of a dynamic fundamental model we show that there has been a continuous electricity price adaption process to market fundamentals furthermore the fundamental drivers of prices differ among hours with different load profiles our results imply that renewable energies decrease market spot prices and have implications on the traditional fuel mix for electricity production however the prices for the final consumers increased overall because they must pay in addition the feed in tariffs for the promotion of renewable energy

revitalising the wind power induced merit order effect to reduce wholesale and retail electricity prices in australia this paper investigates the effect of increasing the number of wind turbine generators on wholesale spot prices in the australian national electricity market s nem given the existing transmission grid from 2014 to 2025 we use a sensitivity analysis to evaluate the effect of five different levels of wind power penetration on prices ranging from scenario a no wind to scenario e that includes existing and planned wind power sufficient to meet australia s original 2020 41twh large scale renewable energy target lret we find divergence in prices between states and similar prices for nodes within states this supports the garnaut climate change review assessment on the prevalence of gold plating the intrastate transmission network and underinvesting in interstate connectivity we find that increasing wind power penetration decreases wholesale spot prices but that retail prices have increased in deregulated south australia and queensland similarly in victoria we argue that there is a pressing need to split the large generator retail companies into separate retail and generator companies and to reassess regulatory rules more generally interconnector congestion limits the potential for wind power to further reduce wholesale prices across the nem so the need for a high capacity transmission backbone in the nem is becoming clearer and will become pressing when australia moves beyond its current 2020 lret

impact of intermittent non conventional renewable generation in the costs of the chilean main power system abstract chile has recently approved a law aiming a target for electricity generation with non conventional renewable energy ncre of 20 by year 2025 it is anticipated that most of this ncre generation will be provided by intermittent energy sources wind and solar photovoltaic pv the economic consequences of intermittent ncre penetration in the chilean central interconnected system sic are assessed the ncre penetration is simulated with a 10 year horizon 2017 2027 considering four scenarios of ncre penetration 10 15 20 and 30 of total generation the authors model the hydro thermal operation of the power system and analyze spot prices total operation costs and capacity factors results show that the average spot price in the sic when having an optimal minimum cost generation mix is 89 7 us mwh as intermittent ncre penetration increases some thermal base load units capacity factors change producing an increase in the generation cost additional transmission capacity is also needed elevating the total cost the average incremental cost of integrating intermittent ncre generation is 65 8 us mwh when increasing ncre penetration from 10 to 30 the effect of fossil fuel price fluctuation is also addressed two policy guidance elements are presented intermittency should be reduced by diversifying the renewable portfolio and penetration costs of intermittent ncre generation have to be incorporated into their investment or operation costs

sociodynamic modeling of small scale pv adoption and insights on future expansion without feed in tariffs abstract understanding complex phenomena such as energy transitions which bear technical economic and social dimensions requires a multi directional approach expansion of the solar energy in the energy mix of a country is similarly complex as its decentralized nature brings about a necessity of public approval and trust besides its economics we therefore develop a combined socio economic model which is based on the sociodynamics framework for the household level adoption of photovoltaics pv we apply the model to the cases of german and italian pv expansion and make a retrospective analysis regarding their dynamics in order to identify the importance of various factors such as the profitability and the public opinion throughout their expansion timeline we then project our model for the german pv expansion onto the near future and investigate the requirement of feed in tariffs to maintain the expansion targets under various scenarios results of our projection point at the importance of the self consumption of pv electricity an average self consumption ratio higher than 25 makes a phase out of feed in tariffs by 2030 possible whereas 50 self consumption renders the feed in tariff regulation obsolete even in today s economic conditions

an ex post analysis of the effect of renewables and cogeneration on spanish electricity prices abstract growing concerns about climate change and energy dependence are driving specific policies to support renewable or more efficient energy sources such as cogeneration in many regions particularly in the production of electricity these policies have a non negligible cost and therefore a careful assessment of their impacts seems necessary in particular one of the most debated impacts is their effect on electricity prices for which there have been some ex ante studies but few ex post studies this article presents a full ex post empirical analysis by looking at use of technologies and hourly electricity prices for 2005 2009 in spain to study the effects that the introduction of renewable electricity and cogeneration has had on wholesale electricity prices it is particularly interesting to perform this study in spain where an active system of public support to renewables and cogeneration has led to a considerable expansion of these energy sources and electricity pricing is at the center of intense debate the paper reports that a marginal increase of 1 gwh of electricity production using renewables and cogeneration is associated with a reduction of almost 2 per mwh in electricity prices around 4 of the average price for the analyzed period

an assessment of the greek incentives scheme for photovoltaics abstract after two years of elaboration a new legislation was enacted in 2006 in greece providing an appealing feed in tariff fit scheme for photovoltaics pvs the response of the market was immediate with more than 7947 licenses having been submitted in less than 2 years time the effectiveness however of an incentives scheme cannot be judged solely by the response of prospective investors aim of this paper is to present and discuss a quantitative assessment of this newly introduced fit law in greece with respect to its attractiveness to investors its effectiveness towards launching a new market its cost efficiency and its ability to lift non economic barriers that led to significant delays in the diffusion of res over the last 10 years

a review of governmental support instruments channeling pv market growth in the flanders region of belgium 2006 2013 abstract how did a country in the middle of western europe starting almost from scratch reach the european top 3 in terms of solar pv capacity in five years and what were the costs we provide a systematic chronological review of the different governmental support instruments that drove the exponential growth of the solar energy market in the flanders region of belgium and calculate their relative contributions the results of the economic calculations show that green electricity certificates had by far the greatest effect on both the rise and stagnation of the market costing about 1 5 billion euro only for 2006 2013 the long term societal costs of such growth proved to be even higher 6 7 billion for 2014 2031 and unevenly distributed with residents paying the highest price via their energy bills companies continuously adapted their organizations to enact the available support instruments counter intuitively the substantial support shifted the attention of companies to the larger systems even though the incentive for investment in pv was lower than for the smaller systems

measuring the progress and impacts of decarbonising british electricity abstract britain s ambitious carbon targets require that electricity be immediately and aggressively decarbonised so it is reassuring to report that electricity sector emissions have fallen 46 in the three years to june 2016 their lowest since 1960 this paper analyses the factors behind this fall and the impacts they are having the main drivers are demand falling 1 3 per year due to efficiency gains and mild winters gas doubling its share to 60 of fossil generation due to the carbon price floor and the dramatic uptake of wind solar and biomass which now supply up to 45 of demand accounting conventions also play their part imported electricity and biomass would add 5 and 2 to emissions if they were included the pace of decarbonisation is impressive but raises both engineering and economic challenges falling peak demand has delayed fears of capacity shortage but minimum net demand is instead becoming a problem the headroom between inflexible nuclear and intermittent renewables is rapidly shrinking with controllable output reaching a minimum of just 5 9 gw as solar output peaked at 7 1 gw 2015 also saw britain s first negative power prices the highest winter peak prices for six years and the highest balancing costs

nuclear and intermittent renewables two compatible supply options the case of the french power mix abstract the complementary features of low carbon power sources are a central issue in designing energy transition policies the french current electricity mix is characterised by a high share of nuclear power which equalled 76 of the total electric production in 2015 with the increase in intermittent renewable sources nuclear flexibility is examined as part of the solution to balance electricity supply and demand our proposed methodology involves designing scenarios with nuclear and intermittent renewable penetration levels and developing residual load duration curves in each case the load modulation impact on the nuclear production cost is estimated this article shows to which extent the nuclear annual energy production will decrease with high shares of intermittent renewables down to load factors of 40 for proactive assumptions however the production cost increase could be compensated by progressively replacing the plants moreover incentives are necessary if nuclear is to compete with combined cycle gas turbines as its alternative back up option in order to reconcile the social planner with plant operator goals the solution could be to find new outlets rather than reducing nuclear load factors nuclear flexibility could then be considered in terms of using its power to produce heat or hydrogen

the impact of renewables on electricity prices in germany an estimation based on historic spot prices in the years 2011 2013 abstract germany s public opinion and media usually attribute increasing electricity prices to the high share of renewables in the german power system but average electricity prices at the european energy exchange dropped during the last years due to an excess of renewable energy this study uses historic market data in order to quantify the effect of renewables on prices historic demand and supply curves from 2011 to 2013 have been used to reconstruct electricity prices under the assumption that no wind and pv would be available the analysis reveals an astonishingly high increase of market prices up to 5 29 ct kwh due to a lack of non renewable power capacities in 2013 the available conventional capacity would not have been able to cover the demand during 269 hours the estimated maximum deficit of 5 6 gw is in good agreement to data published by the german grid operators the discussion of the origin of this deficit leads to the conclusion that the current situation has not been caused by renewables the liberalization of the european energy market established investment risks that hindered required investment a long time before the renewables boomed

holiday price rigidity and cost of price adjustment the thanksgiving christmas holiday period is a major sales period for us retailers due to higher store traffic tasks such as restocking shelves handling customers questions and inquiries running cash registers cleaning and bagging become more urgent during holidays as a result the holiday period opportunity cost of price adjustment may increase dramatically for retail stores which should lead to greater price rigidity during holidays we test this prediction using weekly retail scanner price data from a major midwestern supermarket chain we find that indeed prices are more rigid during holiday periods than non holiday periods for example the econometric model we estimate suggests that the probability of a price change is lower during holiday periods even after accounting for cost changes moreover we find that the probability of a price change increases with the size of the cost change during both the holiday as well as non holiday periods we argue that these findings are best explained by higher price adjustment costs menu cost the retailers face during the holiday periods our data provides a natural experiment for studying variation in price rigidity because most aspects of market environment such as market structure industry concentration the nature of long term relationships contractual arrangements etc do not vary between holiday and nonholiday periods we therefore are able to rule out these commonly used alternative explanations for the price rigidity and conclude that the menu cost theory offers the best explanation for the holiday period price rigidity

sticky prices money and business fluctuations can nominal contracts create monetary nonneutrality if they arise endogenously in general equilibrium yes if 1 agents have complete information about the money stock and 2 shocks to the system are purely redistributive and private information precluding conventional insurance markets without contracts money is neutral toward aggregate quantities however risk sharing between suppliers and demanders creates an incentive for both parties to use nominal contracts in particular if an increase in the money growth rate signals a rise in the dispersion of shocks to demanders wealth then prices adjust only partially to monetary shocks and money is positively associated with output

comparing drivers barriers and opportunities of business models for renewable energies a review abstract this article systematically reviews the emerging field of research on business models for renewable energies differentiating between developing and industrialized countries the key findings on developing countries are as follows first there is a lack of quantitative data second opportunities are driven primarily by unfulfilled basic needs and micro finance whereas corruption and weak electricity grids are the main barriers and third business models should be replicable the key findings on industrialized countries are as follows first opportunities are driven primarily by climate change mitigation and energy efficiency improvements second stuck thought patterns and high costs of energy storage are important barriers and third cooperation is a key in future business models to handle increasing complexity this review reveals implications for researchers and policy makers promising avenues for future research are the analysis of intermodal business models and opportunities concerning energy self supply and renewable district heating policy makers are advised to design legal frameworks that account for the global nature of the renewable energy challenge and are simultaneously adapted to regional disparities

electricity market design for facilitating the integration of wind energy experience and prospects with the australian national electricity market abstract australia has been an early and enthusiastic adopter of both electricity industry restructuring and market based environmental regulation the australian national electricity market nem was established in 1999 and australia also implemented one of the world s first renewable energy target schemes in 2001 with significant recent growth in wind generation australia provides an interesting case for assessing different approaches to facilitating wind integration into the electricity industry wind project developers in australia must assess both potential energy market and tradeable green certificate income streams when making investments wind farm energy income depends on the match of its uncertain time varying output with the regional half hourly market price a price that exhibits daily weekly and seasonal patterns and considerable uncertainty such price signals assist in driving investments that maximize project value to the electricity industry as a whole including integration costs and benefits for other participants recent nem rule changes will formally integrate wind generation in the market s scheduling processes while a centralized wind forecasting system has also been introduced this paper outlines experience to date with wind integration in the nem describes the evolution of market rules in response and assesses their possible implications for facilitating high future wind penetrations

large scale wind power integration and wholesale electricity trading benefits estimation via an ex post approach abstract the integration of large scale wind power has brought about a series of challenges to the power industry but at the same time a number of benefits are being realized among those the ability of wind power to cause a decline in the electricity market prices has been recognized in quantifying this effect some models used in recent years are based on simulations of the market supply side and the price clearing process the accuracy of the estimates depend on the quality of the input data the veracity of the adopted scenarios and the rigorousness of the solution technique in this work a series of econometric techniques based on actual ex post wind power and electricity price data are implemented for the estimation of the impact of region wide wind power integration on the local electricity market clearing prices and the trading savings that stem from this effect the model is applied to the case of spain where the estimated savings are compared against actual credit and bonus expenses to ratepayers the implications and extent of these results for current and future renewable energy policy making are discussed