This paper provides a productivity analysis of German electricity distribution companies. It addresses both traditional issues in electricity sector benchmarking, such as the role of scale effects and optimal utility size, as well as new evidence specific to the situation in Germany. Regarding...

We propose a novel method to find Nash equilibria in games with binary decision variables by including compensation payments and incentive-compatibility constraints from non-cooperative game theory directly into an optimization framework in lieu of using first order conditions of a...

The increased wind energy supplied to many electricity markets around the world has to be balanced by reliable back upunits or other complementary measures when wind conditions are low. At the same time wind energy impacts both, the utilization of thermal power plants and the market prices....

The German decision to finally phase-out nuclear electricity has led to a debate on its effects on electricity prices, emission prices in the European emission trading system, as well as on international electricity trade. We investigate these effects with a Electricity market model for Europe...

Under perfect competition on the output market, first best technology subsidies in the presence of learning by doing are justified by knowledge spill overs that are not accounted for by individual companies. First best output subsidies are thus depending directly on the learning effects and are,...

In this paper we test the hypothesis that the economic transition toward a market economy increases the efficiency of firms. We study 32 Polish electricity distribution companies between 1997-2002, by applying common benchmarking methods to the panel: the nonparametric data envelopment analysis...

A shift from zonal pricing to smaller zones and nodal pricing improves efficiency and security of system operation. Resulting price changes do however also shift profits and surplus between and across generation and load. As individual actorscan lose, they might oppose any reform. We explore how...

We discuss the implications of two price zones, i.e. one northern and southern bidding area, on the German electricity market. In the northern zone, continuous capacity additions with low variable costs cause large regional supply surpluses in the market dispatch while conventional capacity...

In this paper, we analyze the technical efficiency of CO2 reduction potentials of German power and heat plants, using a non-parametric sequential Data Envelopment Analysis. We apply a metafrontier framework to evaluate plant-level efficiencies in the transformation of inputs into desirable...

To date, the distributive implications of incentive regulation on electricity transmission networks have not been explicitly studied in the literature. More specifically, the parameters that a regulator might use to achieve distributive efficiency under price-cap regulation have not yet been...