Energie : papiers de recherche moissonnés (17/07/2019)

The great Dutch gas transition / Karel Beckman and Jilles van den Beukel. Oxford Institute for Energy Studies, July 2019, 24 p. (Oxford energy insight ; 54) lien

The OIES Natural Gas Programme has produced a significant amount of research over the past three years on the issue of the decarbonisation of the gas sector in Europe. This paper examines the strategy of the Netherlands, which relies more on natural gas than any other country in the EU, and which has embarked on an energy transition intended to lead to a complete phase-out of unabated natural gas consumption and production by 2050. However, despite the political consensus on climate policy goals, and the speedy realisation of a Climate Accord, there is still a great deal of uncertainty as to what shape the energy transition in the Netherlands will take and what impact it will have, especially on the future of the Dutch gas industry. This paper provides an excellent case study of the challenges, risks and costs that will be faced by the gas industry as a whole in the European Union over the next three decades.

Dossier géopolitique et stratégique : le nucléaire / Pierre Verluise, docteur en géopolitique de l’Université Paris IV – Sorbonne, Diploweb. la revue géopolitique, 14/07/2019 lien

Le nucléaire, civil et plus encore militaire, est un sujet stratégique par excellence. Raison pour laquelle il s’agit d’un tabou ? Pourtant, la Corée du Nord comme l’Iran le remettent à leur façon au coeur de l’actualité. Encore faut-il disposer d’éléments pour prendre toute la mesure de la rupture stratégique amorcée en 1945. Conçu par Pierre Verluise, ce dossier du Diploweb.com vous présente plus de 30 documents de référence : études, articles, vidéos, cartes et même une émission de radio pour vous permettre de croiser des opinions d’experts.

LNG Market Trends and Their Implications. Paris : IEA, June 2019, 85 p. lien

Structures, drivers and developments of major Asian importers The market structure and trends for the Asian liquefied natural gas (LNG) market have evolved dramatically since this fuel was introduced in the late 1960s. While traditional markets such as Japan or Korea have held their position as the largest consumers in the region, their domestic markets have changed under the influence of liberalisation policies, which have led to different stages of market opening. In parallel, the emergence of fast-growing LNG importers such as the People’s Republic of China has led to substantial market growth, which has coincided with more diversification on the supply side. Such an evolution in the contractual structure has had implications for price formation towards more diversity in indexation and more cross-influences between regional markets.

European Gas Markets, Trading Hubs, and Price Formation: A Network Perspective / David Woroniuk, Arzé Karam and Tooraj Jamasb. Cambridge : Energy Policy Research Group, July 2019, 38 p. (EPRG Working Paper 192) lien

We apply network theory to analyse the interactions of trading hub prices, and to assess the harmonisation of the European gas market. We construct dynamic networks, where the nodes correspond to the twelve EU trading hubs, and where the edges weight the causality between the variations of the respective gas prices. Network density dynamically calculates the aggregate quantity of causal interactions recorded within the system, which provides information pertaining to the integration of the European gas network. We document a number of spikes in network density, suggesting short periods of improved connectivity of European gas markets. We argue that these results appear to be driven by exogenous factors, such as unseasonal weather patterns, seismic activity and pipeline capacity reductions or outages. The findings elucidate the time varying nature of European gas market dynamics, and the importance of continual monitoring of market evolution.

Capacity mechanisms and the technology mix in competitive electricity markets / Par Holmberg and Robert A. Ritz. Cambridge : Energy Policy Research Group, June 2019, 32 p. (EPRG Working Paper 1921) lien

Capacity mechanisms are increasingly used in electricity market design around the world yet their role remains hotly debated. In this paper, we introduce a new benchmark model of a capacity mechanism in a competitive electricity market with many different generation technologies. We consider two policy instruments, a wholesale price cap and a capacity payment, and show which combinations of these instruments induce socially-optimal investment by the market. Changing the price cap or capacity payment affects investment only in peak generation plant, with no equilibrium impact on baseload or mid-merit plant. We obtain a rationale for a capacity mechanism based on the internalization of a system-cost externality – even where the price cap is set at the value of lost load. In extensions, we show how increasing renewables penetration enhances the need for a capacity mechanism, and outline an optimal design of a strategic reserve with a discriminatory capacity payment.

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