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on Regulation |
| By: | Valeria Di Cosmo; Sean Collins; Paul Deane |
| Abstract: | A longstanding goal of the European Union (EU) is to promote efficient trading between price zones via electricity interconnection to achieve a single electricity market between the EU countries. This paper uses a power system model (PLEXOS-EU) to simulate one vision of the 2030 EU electricity market based on European Commission studies to determine the effects of a new interconnector between France and the Single Electricity Market of Ireland and Northern Ireland (SEM). We use the same tool to understand the effects of investment in storage, and the effects of the interaction between storage and additional interconnection. Our results show that both investments in interconnection and storage reduce wholesale electricity prices in France and Ireland as well as reduce net revenues of thermal generators in most scenarios in both countries. However, France is only marginally affected by the new interconnector. Renewable generators see a modest increase in net revenues. The project has the potential for a positive impact on welfare in Ireland if costs are shared between countries and remain below 45 million €/year for the scenarios examined. The owners of the new interconnector between France and SEM see increased net revenues in the scenarios without storage. When storage is included in the system, the new interconnector becomes less profitable. |
| Keywords: | Resource /Energy Economics and Policy |
| Date: | 2017–09–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:feemes:263159&r=reg |
| By: | Mathias Mier (ifo Institute, Munich, Germany) |
| Abstract: | Most electricity systems face contractual fixed consumer prices in the short term, that is, load and price are fixed before the random supply of renewables like wind or solar realizes. Steam power plants also make production decisions before such a random supply realizes. These capacities cannot react instantly, which creates a demand for gas turbines to balance renewables. We approach these dynamics by considering different types of dispatchability in a more general framework of peak-load pricing and contribute to the debate on market design and capacity payments. Steam power always recovers costs, gas turbines never do so, and renewables might. We describe possible transfer schemes to overcome this problem and provide a more market-oriented solution. However, consumers must always be compensated for lost load. |
| Keywords: | renewable energies, peak-load pricing, electricity market design, missing market, missing money, capacity payments |
| Date: | 2018–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:old:dpaper:412&r=reg |
| By: | Peter, Jakob (Energiewirtschaftliches Institut an der Universitaet zu Koeln (EWI)); Wagner, Johannes (Energiewirtschaftliches Institut an der Universitaet zu Koeln (EWI)) |
| Abstract: | Electricity markets are increasingly influenced by variable renewable energy such as wind and solar power with a pronounced weather-induced variability and imperfect predictability. As a result, the evaluation of the capacity value of variable renewable energy, i.e. its contribution to security of supply, gains importance. This paper develops a new methodology to endogenously determine the capacity value in large-scale investment and dispatch models for electricity markets. The framework allows to account for balancing effects due to the spatial distribution of generation capacities and interconnectors. The practical applicability of the methodology is shown with an application for wind power in Europe. We find that wind power can substantially contribute to security of supply in a decarbonized European electricity system in 2050, with regional capacity values ranging from 1 - 40%. Analyses, which do not account for the temporal and spatial heterogeneity of the contribution of wind power to security of supply therefore lead to inefficient levels of dispatchable back-up capacity. Applying a fixed wind power capacity value of 5% results in an overestimation of firm capacity requirements in Europe by 66GW in 2050. This translates to additional firm capacity provision costs of 3.8 bn EUR per year in 2050, which represents an increase of 7%. |
| Keywords: | Reliability of supply; Capacity adequacy; Multi-regional power system; Wind power; Power system modeling |
| JEL: | C61 C63 L50 Q42 Q48 |
| Date: | 2018–08–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ris:ewikln:2018_002&r=reg |
| By: | Louis-Gaëtan Giraudet (ENPC - École des Ponts ParisTech, CIRED - Centre International de Recherche sur l'Environnement et le Développement - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - ENPC - École des Ponts ParisTech - AgroParisTech - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - CIRAD - Centre de Coopération Internationale en Recherche Agronomique pour le Développement); Sébastien Houde (University of Maryland [College Park]); Joseph Maher (University of Maryland [College Park]) |
| Abstract: | We investigate how moral hazard problems can cause sub-optimal investment in energy efficiency, a phenomenon known as the energy efficiency gap. We focus on contexts where both the quality offered by the energy efficiency provider and the behavior of the energy user are imperfectly observable. We first formalize under-provision of quality and compare two policy instruments: energy-savings insurance and minimum quality standards. Both instruments are second-best, for different reasons. Insurance induce over-use of energy, thereby requiring incomplete coverage in equilibrium. Standards incur enforcement costs. We then provide empirical evidence of moral hazard in the U.S. home retrofit market. We find that for those measures, the quality of which is deemed hard to observe, realized energy savings are subject to day-of-the-week effects. Specifically, energy savings are significantly lower when those measures were installed on a Friday—a day particularly prone to negative shocks on workers' productivity—than on any other weekday. The Friday effect explains 65% of the discrepancy between predicted and realized energy savings, an increasingly documented manifestation of the energy efficiency gap. We finally parameterize a model of the U.S. market for attic insulation and find that the deadweight loss from moral hazard is important over a range of specifications. Minimum quality standards appear more desirable than energy-savings insurance if energy-use externalities remain unpriced. |
| Keywords: | minimum quality standard, energy-savings insurance, credence good, day-of-the-week effect,Energy efficiency gap, moral hazard |
| Date: | 2016–12–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-01420872&r=reg |
| By: | Imelda; Matthias Fripp; Michael J. Roberts |
| Abstract: | On a levelized-cost basis, solar and wind power generation are now competitive with fossil fuels. But supply of these renewable resources is variable and intermittent, unlike traditional power plants. As a result, the cost of using flat retail pricing instead of dynamic, marginal-cost pricing—long advocated by economists—will grow. We evaluate the potential gains from dynamic pricing in high-renewable systems using a novel model of power supply and demand in Hawai’i. The model breaks new ground in integrating investment in generation and storage capacity with chronological operation of the system, including an account of reserves, a demand system with different interhour elasticities for different uses, and substitution between power and other goods and services. The model is open source and fully adaptable to other settings. Consistent with earlier studies, we find that dynamic pricing provides little social benefit in fossil-fuel-dominated power systems, only 2.6 to 4.6 percent of baseline annual expenditure. But dynamic pricing leads to a much greater social benefit of 8.5 to 23.4 percent in a 100 percent renewable power system with otherwise similar assumptions. High renewable systems, including 100 percent renewable, are remarkably affordable. The welfare maximizing (unconstrained) generation portfolio under the utility’s projected 2045 technology and pessimistic interhour demand flexibility uses 79 percent renewable energy, without even accounting for pollution externalities. If overall demand for electricity is more elastic than our baseline (0.1), renewable energy is even cheaper and variable pricing can improve welfare by as much as 47 percent of baseline expenditure. |
| JEL: | Q41 Q42 Q53 |
| Date: | 2018–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:24712&r=reg |
| By: | David Martimort (PSE - Paris School of Economics, PJSE - Paris Jourdan Sciences Economiques - UP1 - Université Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS Paris - École normale supérieure - Paris - INRA - Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École des Ponts ParisTech - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique); Jérôme Pouyet (PSE - Paris School of Economics, PJSE - Paris Jourdan Sciences Economiques - UP1 - Université Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS Paris - École normale supérieure - Paris - INRA - Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École des Ponts ParisTech - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique); Francesco Ricci (ART-Dev - Acteurs, Ressources et Territoires dans le Développement - CIRAD - Centre de Coopération Internationale en Recherche Agronomique pour le Développement - UPVD - Université de Perpignan Via Domitia - UM3 - Université Paul-Valéry - Montpellier 3 - UM - Université de Montpellier - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) |
| Abstract: | We characterize the optimal extraction path when a concessionaire has private information on the initial stock of resource. Under asymmetric information, a `virtual Hotelling rule' describes how the resource price evolves over time and how extraction costs are compounded with information costs along an optimal extraction path. In sharp contrast with the case of complete information, elds which are heterogeneous in terms of their initial stocks follow di erent extraction paths. Some resource might be left unexploited in the long-run as a way to foster incentives. The optimal contract may sometimes be implemented through royalties and license fees. With a market of concessionaires, asymmetric information leads to a `virtual Her ndahl principle' and to a new form of heterogeneity across active concessionaires. Under asymmetric information, the market price converges faster to its long-run limit, exhibiting more stability. |
| Keywords: | Optimal,Contract,Non-Renewable resource, Delegated Management, Asymmetric Information |
| Date: | 2017–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:halshs-01431170&r=reg |
| By: | Paul Belleflamme (AMSE - Aix-Marseille Sciences Economiques - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - AMU - Aix Marseille Université - ECM - Ecole Centrale de Marseille - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique); Martin Peitz (Department of Economics and MaCCI, University of Mannheim) |
| Abstract: | On many two-sided platforms, users on one side not only care about user participation and usage levels on the other side, but they also care about participation and usage of fellow users on the same side. Most prominent is the degree of seller competition on a platform catering to buyers and sellers. In this paper, we address how seller competition affects platform pricing, product variety, and the number of platforms that carry trade. |
| Keywords: | network effects,two-sided markets,platform competition,intermediation,pricing,imperfect competition |
| Date: | 2018–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:halshs-01833106&r=reg |
| By: | Zhang, ZhongXiang |
| Abstract: | The Chinese leadership has determined to assign the market a decisive role in allocating resources. To have the market to play that role, getting the energy prices right is crucial because this sends clear signals to both producers and consumers of energy. While the overall trend of China’s energy pricing reform since 1984 has been moving away from the prices set by the central government in the centrally planned economy and towards a more market-oriented pricing mechanism, the pace and scale of the reform differ across energy types. This article discusses the evolution of price reforms for coal, petroleum products, natural gas, electricity and renewable power in China, and provides some analysis of these energy price reforms, in order to have the market to play a decisive role in allocating resources and help China’s transition to a low-carbon economy. |
| Keywords: | Resource /Energy Economics and Policy |
| Date: | 2018–06–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:feemes:273368&r=reg |
| By: | Erol, Selman (Carnegie Mellon University); Lee, Michael Junho (Federal Reserve Bank of New York) |
| Abstract: | This paper develops a model to study the formation and regulation of information transmission networks. We analyze a cat and mouse game between a regulator, who sets and enforces a regulatory environment, and agents, who form networks to disseminate and share insider information. For any given regulatory environment, agents adapt by forming networks that are sufficiently complex to circumvent prosecution by regulators. We show that regulatory ambiguity arises as an equilibrium phenomenon—regulators deliberately set broad regulatory boundaries in order to avoid explicit gaming by agents. As a response, we show that agents form a core-periphery network, with core members acting as conduits of information on behalf of their stakeholders, effectively intermediating all transmissions of information within the network. |
| Keywords: | network formation; insider trading; regulatory ambiguity; endogenous intermediation |
| JEL: | D85 G14 G20 |
| Date: | 2018–08–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fednsr:862&r=reg |
| By: | Moliterni, Fabio |
| Abstract: | This study investigates the connection between rent-seeking behaviour, corruption activity and quality of institutions to empirically evaluate the unexpected implications of an energy policy for criminal activity. The object of this research is a program of public subsidies introduced in Italy in 2005, which successfully boosted the solar energy sector but seems to have generated a growth of corruption activity, arisen from the opportunity of rent extraction. In particular, according to the main hypothesis of this research, bribery is expected to rise significantly where big photovoltaic plants are concentrated and administrative procedures are more complicated. To determine the causal effect of the subsidies on corruption, the study employs a Difference-in-Difference methodology on a sample of 76 Italian provinces and exploits solar radiation as exogenous variable to discriminate the profitability of investments and bribing. Results confirm that, in poor-institutions areas, the growth of the solar sector in sunniest provinces has gone hand in hand with increasing corruption. Results suggest that policy makers should pay additional attention to the potential distortions of public policies implying large rent opportunities, in areas where the weakness of institutional settings and the bureaucratic complexities encourage illegal behaviour. |
| Keywords: | Resource /Energy Economics and Policy |
| Date: | 2017–07–13 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:feemss:259482&r=reg |
| By: | Germán Gutiérrez; Thomas Philippon |
| Abstract: | Until the 1990's, US markets were more competitive than European markets. Today, European markets have lower concentration, lower excess profits, and lower regulatory barriers to entry. We document this surprising outcome and propose an explanation using a model of political support. Politicians care about consumer welfare but also enjoy retaining control over industrial policy. We show that politicians from different countries who set up a common regulator will make it more independent and more pro-competition than the national ones it replaces. Our comparative analysis of antitrust policy reveals strong support for this and other predictions of the model. European institutions are more independent than their American counterparts, and they enforce pro-competition policies more strongly than any individual country ever did. Countries with ex-ante weak institutions benefit more from the delegation of antitrust enforcement to the EU level. Our model also explains why political and lobbying expenditures have increased much more in America than in Europe, and using data across industries and across countries, we show that these expenditures explain the relative rise of concentration and market power in the US. |
| JEL: | D02 D41 D42 D43 D72 E25 K21 L0 |
| Date: | 2018–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:24700&r=reg |
| By: | Wesley Blundell; Gautam Gowrisankaran; Ashley Langer |
| Abstract: | The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency uses a dynamic approach to environmental enforcement for air pollution, with repeat offenders subject to high fines and designation as high priority violators (HPV). We estimate the benefits of dynamic monitoring and enforcement by developing and estimating a dynamic model of a plant and regulator, where plants decide when to invest in pollution abatement technologies. We use a fixed grid approach to estimate random coefficient specifications. Investment, fines, and HPV designation are very costly to most plants. Eliminating dynamic enforcement would have large adverse impacts on the number of high priority violators and pollutants emitted. |
| JEL: | Q53 Q58 |
| Date: | 2018–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:24810&r=reg |
| By: | John Jairo García Rendón; Diego F. Linares |
| Abstract: | This work focuses on the main variables that explain the prices of the voice services established by mobile service providers in Colombia. This will be done by analyzing different variables that characterize this sector, like, historical prices stablished by all operators, all the investments made in network development, market sharing and all the existing regulatory measures. We develop a model for data panels in the period between 2005 and 2011, which makes evident the existing interdependence amongst the different companies when setting rates. It is also evident the leadership of one of the competitors and the existing price war between providers. |
| Keywords: | Telecommunications, price wars, Investment, Regulation, Colombia |
| JEL: | D43 C23 |
| Date: | 2018–07–30 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:col:000122:016449&r=reg |
| By: | Jérôme Pouyet (PSE - Paris School of Economics, PJSE - Paris Jourdan Sciences Economiques - UP1 - Université Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS Paris - École normale supérieure - Paris - INRA - Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École des Ponts ParisTech - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique); Thomas Trégouët (THEMA - Théorie économique, modélisation et applications - UCP - Université de Cergy Pontoise - Université Paris-Seine - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) |
| Abstract: | We analyze the competitive impact of vertical integration between a platform and a manufacturer when platforms provide operating systems for devices sold by manufacturers to customers, and, customers care about the applications developed for the operating systems. Two-sided network effects between customers and developers create strategic substitutability between manufacturers' prices. When it brings efficiency gains, vertical integration increases consumer surplus, is not profitable when network effects are strong, and, benefits the non-integrated manufacturer. When developers bear a cost to make their applications available on a platform, manufacturers boost the participation of developers by affiliating with the same platform. This creates some market power for the integrated firm and vertical integration then harms consumers, is always profitable, and, leads to foreclosure. Introducing developer fees highlights that not only the level, but also the structure of indirect network effects matter for the competitive analysis. |
| Keywords: | network effects,Vertical integration,two-sided markets |
| Date: | 2016–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:halshs-01410077&r=reg |