Different private sector-led and government-led approaches to the development of solar hybrid mini grids are found around the world. Five approaches used in Africa are reviewed here. Each works better in some contexts than in others; each has advantages and disadvantages. In private-sector-led...

We often take electricity for granted, expecting it at the flick of a switch. Yet behind the scenes, 11.3 million Km of electricity lines and cables bring electricity to 266 million customers. Combating climate change and enhancing the EU's energy independence requires a modernised electricity...

Energy losses, both technical and non-technical, are incurred during the transfer of electrical energy from the power plant to the customer. Technical energy losses are evident since they result from the properties of materials. Detecting non-technical energy losses is challenging due to their...

This document provides recommendations for the statistical recording of capacity allocation and balancing markets, which are crucial for addressing deviations between supply and demand in electricity markets. It also includes guidance on transactions related to the electricity congestion income...

The following guidelines are primarily aimed for public authorities and intend to provide recommendations and examples of good practices that these authorities can consider when setting up tenders for publicly accessible EV recharging infrastructure. While the onus of responsibility for ensuring...

Electrification typically promotes economic development and enhances household wellbeing. However, how electrification affects the economic activities of different demographic groups is not yet sufficiently understood. Focusing only on aggregate household-level outcomes may overlook unequal...

This paper develops a simple nonparametric test for perfect competition in markets for homogenous goods. The method only requires data on prices and some aggregate of output. We then generalize the method to account for variable capacity and intertemporal production decisions. We apply the...

This document provides recommendations for the statistical recording of capacity allocation and balancing markets, which are crucial for addressing deviations between supply and demand in electricity markets. It also includes guidance on transactions related to the electricity congestion income...

This study investigates how credit to firms responds to an energy price shock by comparing the credit growth of similar firms with different energy intensities before and after the shock triggered by the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Credit growth of energy-intensive firms declined by 8.75...

Long-term planning tools compute investment in energy technologies to reach techno-economic objectives. These tools are typically used to define decarbonization pathways with the corresponding capacities for several types of technologies. However, for most renewable-based resources that are...

Access to electricity is the lifeblood of modern society. Electricity grids are undergoing transformative changes, driven mainly by decarbonization, decentralization and the integration of variable renewables. Transmission System Operators (TSOs) face increasing pressures from these changes, yet...

In the 1990s, the World Bank and other development financiers supported a power sector reform framework emphasizing restructuring or unbundling of utilities, creation of regulators, private sector participation (both in terms of financing and managing the operations of power networks and...

To ensure security of supply in the power sector, many countries are already using or discussing the introduction of capacity mechanisms. Two main types of such mechanisms include capacity markets and capacity reserves. Simultaneously, the expansion of variable renewable energy sources increases...

Electric Network Frequencys (ENF) analysis has emerged as a powerful tool for forensic investigations, providing timestamp and geolocation information of audio or video recordings based on the unique frequency pattern of the power grid. However, the forensic usability of ENF signals extracted...

The increasing share of intermittent renewable energy generation amplifies power price volatility, raising the need for storage technologies such as battery energy storage systems (BESS). However, limited transmission infrastructure, particularly constrained grid connections, poses a major...

The ongoing transition of our energy systems implies a rise of distributed generators, batteries, and new consumers, including electric vehicles and heat pumps. Previous studies have found that distributed flexibility may substantially benefit wholesale electricity markets, but have neglected...

Heterogeneous interconnections, which link regulated electricity markets to liberalised ones, are becoming increasingly important. Several such interconnections are set to be established in the near future especially between European and North African countries (e.g., Tunisia-Italy,...

Electrification is a primary strategy to achieve carbon neutrality. The expected surge in future electricity demand by battery electric vehicle (BEV) necessitates the reinforcement and construction of transmission and distribution (T&D) network. This study aims to evaluate the spatial...

This paper proposes a game-theoretic model to analyze the strategic behavior of inc-dec gaming in market-based congestion management (redispatch). We extend existing models by considering incomplete information about competitors’ costs and a finite set of providers. We find that inc-dec gaming...

The rapid growth of photovoltaic (PV) systems in Austria's medium- and low-voltage grids has intensified challenges in grid access, with technical limits increasingly leading to restrictions on full feed-in power. This issue has sparked discussions about limiting PV feed-in power and the...

We set up a static model of electricity provision in which delivery to consumers is only imperfectly reliable. Blackouts can be either rolling or systemic; in both cases a price cap becomes active on the wholesale market. We show that for any given value of the price cap, one can decentralize...

Distribution grids are critical for the energy transition: with the majority of future assets to be connected at the distribution-grid level, the decentralization and decarbonization of the energy system depend on strong and future-ready electricity distribution networks. This study gathers and...

In the last decades, the governance of national electricity systems in Europe has experienced several shifts between market liberalization and policy intervention. However, there remains a lack of consistent evidence about impacts of electricity market governance on the performance of...

Embedded storage capacity in South Africa has rapidly increased between 2022 and 2024 as residential consumers and telecommunication companies installed storage to mitigate the impact of frequent interruptions to the electricity supply. These interruptions, caused by unreliable generation...

The ongoing transformation towards a sector-coupled energy system based on renewable generation leads to more complex grid-based energy system models. It is a crucial task to reduce the models' complexities in order to keep optimisation problems tractable while at the same time generating...

Over the past decade, digitalisation has gained significant attention across various European Union (EU) policy areas, particularly in the energy sector. Along with this, digitalisation can contribute to higher energy security and sustainability of the EU energy systems especially by reducing...

Quantitative benchmarks for cost-effective provision of rural energy access are difficult to obtain because deployment costs vary across technologies, contexts, and technical assistance approaches – but crucially also across sustainability assumptions. As an alternative, this policy...

This perspective article discusses whether energy access programs in rural Sub-Saharan Africa reach the poor in a way that most policy actors claim. We examine on- and off-grid electrification as well as improved cooking. The success of pro-poor development is predicated on the programs...

This study analyses the present and future of the European electricity and gas infrastructure, exploring production capacity scenarios and their impact on the electricity system (including the role of interconnections, transmission and distribution grids, prosumers, and storage). It also...

This study analyses the present and future of the European electricity and gas infrastructure, exploring production capacity scenarios and their impact on the electricity system (including the role of interconnections, transmission and distribution grids, prosumers, and storage). It also...