The aim of this paper is to identify the main challenges regarding the achievement of a low-carbon energy system in the EU by 2050. We analyze the visions presented by stakeholders and existing strategies of member state to achieve this transition. The five main challenges identified are the...

The European Commission has recently launched the Smart Cities Initiative to demonstrate and disseminate how to foster a quick transition towards local sustainable energy systems. Within this initiative, the three main challenges faced by pioneering cities, are to reduce or modify the demand for...

We are in desperate need of an EU Energy Policy. The facts are that, yes, there is indeed an EU Energy Policy. It is a policy based on a vision, a vision with three components. The policy is aiming for “markets, competition and efficiency”, it is equally focussing on “a sustainable energy...

If Europe is serious about climate change, it has to reduce its overall greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by 2050, thereby effectively going to a (near-) zero carbon energy and thus, electricity system. The European Climate Foundation, Eurelectric, and the International Energy Agency have...

Climate change and security of supply policies are driving us towards a decarbonization of the electricity system. It is in this context that smart grids are being discussed. Electricity grids, and hence their regulatory frameworks, have a key role to play in facilitating this transformation of...

Incentives for the development of renewable energy have increasingly become an instrument of climate policy, that is, as a means to reduce GHG emissions. This research analyzes the German experience in promoting renewable energy over the past decade to identify the ex-post cost of reducing CO2...

Onshore, generators are connected to the transmission grid by TSOs. This regulatory model could simply be extended to offshore (i.e. Germany), but the connection of offshore wind farms to shore is also an opportunity to test alternatives, i.e. the third party model (i.e. the UK) or the generator...

Electricity markets are increasingly integrated across borders, but transmission and renewable energy policies often remain local and uncoordinated. In this paper, we analyze how cooperative behavior in developing renewable energy technologies across borders and/or cross-border transmission...

In the transition towards a decarbonized energy system, we need city authorities to lead by example as public actors, to govern the actions of the private urban actors as local policy makers, and to conceive and manage the implementation of an integrated approach as coordinators, which we...

Power Exchanges (PXs) are key market institutions in open and market-based electricity industries. This paper aims at contributing to the ongoing debate on why and how to regulate Power Exchanges in the EU market integration context. . The paper starts by stating that two different types of PXs...