"Instead of outbidding each other and driving prices up," on 25 March, the 27 EU nations decided to "pool [their] purchasing power" for the "voluntary common purchase of gas". In short, they decided to form a buyers' cartel. So far, difficulties have been identified, but what is needed is a...

A firm energy market for Colombia is presented. Firm energy—the ability to provideenergy in a dry period—is the product needed for reliability in Colombia’s hydrodominatedelectricity market. The firm energy market coordinates investment in newresources to assure that sufficient firm energy...

We present a simulation analysis of the proposed Colombian firm energy market. The mainpurpose of the simulation is to assess the risk to suppliers of participation in the market. We alsoare able to consider variations in the market design, and assess the impact of alternative...

Wholesale electricity markets are commonly organized around a spot energy market.Buyers and suppliers submit bids and offers for each hour and the market is cleared atthe price that balances supply and demand. Buyers with bids above the clearing pricepay that price, and suppliers with offers...

We argue that a capacity market is needed in most restructured electricitymarkets, and present a design that avoids problems found in the early capacitymarkets. The proposed market only rewards capacity that contributes toreliability as demonstrated by its performance during hours in which there...

Scaling up renewable energy, such as wind and solar, goes hand-in-hand with the expansion of transmission infrastructure. The richest solar and wind renewable energy sites are often located far away from consumption centers or existing transmission networks. Unlike fossil fuel-based power...

The Kyoto summit initiated an international game of cap and trade. Unlike a national policy, the essence of this game is the self-selection of national emission targets. This differs from the standard global public-goods game because targets are met in the context of a global carbon market. This...

Global cap and trade equalizes the price of emissions and leads to efficient abatement across countries, but sets the abatement level inefficiently low. It is set too low, because the global cap is the sum of individual country targets set on the basis of self-interest. The efficiency of a...

The international game of cap and trade begins when countries choose their quantity targets, which are largely selected according to self interest. The analogous public-goods game, in which countries choose their abatement levels, has an uncooperative outcome. Compared to that, the Nash...