Energie : papiers de recherche moissonnés (22/05/2018)

The Oil Market’s Mixed Price Signals / Bassam Fattouh, Oxford Insttute for Energy Studies, May 2018, 5 p. (Oxford energy comment) https://www.oxfordenergy.org/publications/oil-markets-mixed-price-signals/

Recent movements in oil prices, time spreads, and physical differentials have been sending some mixed signals both about current and long-term market fundamentals. This may reflect heightened uncertainty as well as a wide divergence of expectations about key factors shaping the oil market, both in the short-term and the medium-term, including the size of potential output losses from Iran following the US withdrawal from the nuclear deal, how low Venezuelan oil production may go, whether OPEC+ will exit the deal anytime soon, the potential impact of the recent oil price increases on oil demand growth, and whether the market will face a supply crunch in the next couple of years due to lack of investment. Over time, some of these key uncertainties will be resolved and the price signals may converge towards a more ‘coherent’ story with movements in price levels, the back end of the futures curve, time spreads and physical differentials all pointing in the same direction. This, however, may take time and the adjustment mechanism remains unclear and so for now the various market players have little choice but to navigate through mixed price signals, some sharp disconnections between price levels, time spreads and physical differentials and between short-term and long-term expectations.

Capacity mechanisms in EU Law: A comment on the free movement of goods / Kaisa Huhta, Oxford Institute for Energy Studies, May 2018, 8 p. (Oxford energy comment) https://www.oxfordenergy.org/publications/capacity-mechanisms-eu-law-comment-free-movement-goods/

The EU internal market in electricity is experiencing challenges in ensuring resource adequacy through the operation of the energy-only market alone. To guarantee the uninterrupted availability of affordable electricity, many Member States have adopted national capacity mechanisms, which compensate for the availability and readiness of existing and forthcoming generation capacity to supply electricity.  These national security of supply instruments conflict with internal market integration, and the EU legal framework established to facilitate such integration, because they tend to allocate public funding to national generation capacity instead of incentivizing cross-border solutions to ensure resource adequacy. This comment examines Member States’ capacity mechanisms in the context of the EU rules on free movement, which offer the most powerful legal means to further internal market integration. The legal analysis demonstrates that EU law acknowledges Member States’ need to intervene when the markets fail to deliver resource adequacy. However, EU law also aims to restrict such State intervention to that strictly necessary to ensure the uninterrupted availability of affordable electricity.

Territorialisation des politiques énergétiques et développement local en Europe : une étude comparée de la contribution des initiatives locales de production d’énergie renouvelable à la multifonctionnalité des espaces ruraux / Felix Authier. Thèse. Géographie. Université de Perpignan, 2018 https://tel.archives-ouvertes.fr/tel-01793049

S’il paraît attesté que les énergies renouvelables (EnR) participent à la lutte contre le changement climatique, leur influence sur le développement des espaces ruraux reste encore en grande partie à explorer. L’objet de ce travail comparatif est précisément d’étudier dans quelle mesure les initiatives locales dans le domaine des énergies renouvelables affectent les espaces ruraux français et allemands. La mobilisation des concepts de capital social, capital territorial et de multifonctionnalité a permis de montrer le rôle décisif de facteurs territorialisés dans la réalisation des projets. L’étude empirique montre ensuite que la réalisation de projets photovoltaïques et éoliens contribue à dynamiser les territoires et à accroître leur résilience. En fonction de caractéristiques locales, deux types de développement ont été identifiés : un développement territorial institutionnel et un développement territorial citoyen.

Emissions Trading and Electricity Sector Regulation: A conceptual framework for un derstanding interactions between carbon prices and electricity prices / William Acworth, Mariza Montes de Oca, Carlotta Piantieri, Frédéric Gagnon-Lebrun, Philip Gass, Yanick Touchette, Felix Christian Matthes. ICAP ; IISD,Oko Institut, April 2018, 49 p. https://icapcarbonaction.com/en/?option=com_attach&task=download&id=566

In this study, we develop a conceptual framework to understand the interaction between allowance prices and electricity prices under different forms of power sector regulation. At one end of the regulation spectrum, vertically integrated (and in some cases non-profit driven) monopolies deliver all services of the electricity sector, from generation to electricity retailing and power prices and/or investment decisions are subject to regulatory oversight. In partially liberalized markets, regulators fix power prices with multiple policy objectives in mind (e.g., affordability and reliability) and impose output, investment and technology requirements on firms’ activities. More flexible forms of power sector regulation might include market conditions with maximum or minimum prices for certain consumers or performance standards for power producers. Even in partially liberalized markets, planning such as renewable energy targets and portfolio standards can influence the role for and strength of an ETS.

Unintended consequences: the snowball effect of energy communities / Ibrahim Abada, Andreas Ehrenmann and Xavier Lambin. 18 April 2018, 34 p. (Cambridge Working Papers in Economics: 1828) https://ideas.repec.org/p/cam/camdae/1828.html

Following the development of decentralized generation and smart appliances, energy communities have become a phenomenon of increased interest. While the benefits of such communities have been discussed, there is increasing concern that inadequate grid tariffs may lead to excess adoption of such business models. Furthermore,  snowball effects may be observed following the effects these communities have on grid tariffs. We show that restraining the study to a simple cost-benefit analysis is far from satisfactory. Therefore, we use the framework of cooperative game theory to take account of the ability of communities to share gains between members. The interaction between energy communities and the DSO then results in a non-cooperative equilibrium. We provide mathematical formulations and intuitions of such effects, and carry out realistic numerical applications where communities can invest jointly in solar panels and batteries. We show that such a snowball effect may be observed, but its magnitude and its welfare effects will depend on the grid tariff structure that is implemented, leading to possible PV over-investments.

Danièle Revel

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