The discussion of the support for renewable energy must consider the distributional impact of cost allocation. The public is sensitive to social imbalances caused by rising power prices that might jeopardize the acceptance of energy transformation. By the end of 2012 about 19 percent of German...

A comparison of support schemes for market-based deployment of renewable energy in the UK and Germany shows that the feed-in tariff reduces costs to consumers and results in larger deployment. A survey among project developers suggests two explanations: (1) Site selection presents the biggest...

The 2014 reform of the German Renewable Energy Act introduces a mandatory shift from a fixed feed-in tariff to a floating premium system. This is envisaged to create additional incentives for project developers, but also impacts revenues and costs for new investments in wind generation. Thus...

In the European Emissions Trading System, power generators hold CO2 allowances to hedge for future power sales. First, we model their aggregate hedging demand in response to changes in expectations of future fuel, carbon and power prices from forward prices. This partial equilibrium analysis is...

Integrating large quantities of supply-driven renewable electricity generation remains a political and operational challenge. One of the main obstacles in Europe to installing at least 200 GWs of power from variable renewable sources is how to deal with the insufficient network capacity and the...

Die europäische Grundstoffindustrie muss investieren, um wettbewerbsfähig zu bleiben. Dabei steht sie vor einem Dilemma: Konventionelle Technologien gefährden die Klimaziele und bergen daher langfristige Risiken. Klimaneutrale Technologien kosten kurzfristig mehr und sind aktuell noch nicht...

The German government has committed to reducing the primary energy demand of buildings by 80% by 2050. Achieving this reduction will require foremost efficiency improvements, with a first milestone of a 20% reduction in heat demand levels by 2020. Given that about 80% of today’s building stock...

Installations covered by the European Emission Trading Scheme (EU ETS) can use credits from the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) to cover a share of their emissions. The CDM credits are generated by low-carbon projects in developing countries that require the CDM support to become financially...

Zwischen 2002 und 2007 verabschiedete die Bundesregierung die Nationale Nachhaltigkeitsstrategie und das Integrierte Energie- und Klimaprogramm. Beide Programme enthalten klare energie- und klimapolitische Zielsetzungen: So sollen die Treibhausgasemissionen bis zum Jahr 2020 um 40% gesenkt...