Renewable energy regulation and structural breaks: An empirical analysis of Spanish electricity price volatility

International experience proves that electricity prices have undergone major changes in volatility since the entry of green technologies. The intermittency of renewable sources is one of the reasons for these changes, as it leads to higher volatility in periods of higher participation by renewables. We argue that the development of the regulatory system promoting renewable electricity also plays a crucial role. We raise a question that deserves attention: could an incentive scheme induce higher share of renewables and lower volatility simultaneously? In this paper, we conduct an empirical analysis with Spanish data. We analyze possible ensuing structural changes in Spanish electricity spot price volatility from January 2002 to December 2017. We identify two structural breaks linked to important measures related to renewable electricity: (i) the abolishment of the feed-in tariff scheme; and (ii) the establishment of a more market-oriented regulation based on investment and operating costs. We conclude that stable regulatory policies reduce volatility even though the presence of renewable sources is greater. Furthermore, market-based policy measures achieve lower volatility, encouraging good integration of intermittent renewable electricity. © 2020 Elsevier B.V.Financial support from Ministerio de Economa y Competitividad and Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional under research grant ECO2015-64467-R (MINECO/FEDER) and from Dpto. de Educación, Universidades e Investigación del Gobierno Vasco under research grant IT1336-19 is acknowledged. Cristina Pizarro-Irizar also acknowledges financial support from Ministerio de Economa y Competitividad under research grant ECO2015-68023 , Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades under research grant RTI2018-093352-B-I00 , Gobierno Vasco through the BERC 2018-2021 program and by Ministerio de Economa y Competitividad MINECO through BC3 Maria de Maeztu excellence accreditation MDM-2017-0714 . All the authors are grateful for the valuable comments made by participants in the 41st International Conference of the International Association for Energy Economics and the 14th Conference of the Spanish Association for Energy Economics

Economic growth-electricity consumption causality in 12 European countries: A dynamic panel data approach

This paper applies recent panel methodology to investigate the long-run and causal relationship between electricity consumption and real GDP for a set of 12 European countries using annual data for the period 1970-2007. The sample countries have moved faster than other neighboring countries towards the creation of a single electricity market over the past 30 years. Energy prices are also included in the study due to their important role in affecting the above variables, thus avoiding the problem of omitted variable bias. Tests for panel unit roots, cointegration in heterogeneous panels and panel causality are employed in a trivariate VECM estimated by system GMM. The results show evidence of a long-run equilibrium relationship between the three series and a negative short-run and strong causality from electricity consumption to GDP. As expected, there is bidirectional causality between energy prices and GDP and weaker evidence between electricity consumption and energy prices. These results support the policies implemented towards the creation of a common European electricity market.Electricity consumption Economic growth Panel causality

Multi-agent Systems Society for Power and Energy Systems Simulation

A key challenge in the power and energy field is the development of decision-support systems that enable studying big problems as a whole. The interoperability between multi-agent systems that address specific parts of the global problem is essential. Ontologies ease the interoperability between heterogeneous systems providing semantic meaning to the information exchanged between the various parties. The use of ontologies within Smart Grids has been proposed based on the Common Information Model, which defines a common vocabulary describing the basic components used in electricity transportation and distribution. However, these ontologies are focused on utilities’ needs. The development of ontologies that allow the representation of diverse knowledge sources is essential, aiming at supporting the interaction between entities of different natures, facilitating the interoperability between these systems. This paper proposes a set of ontologies to enable the interoperability between different types of agent-based simulators, namely regarding electricity markets, the smart grid, and residential energy management. A case study based on real data shows the advantages of the proposed approach in enabling comprehensive power system simulation studies.This work has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement No 641794 (project DREAM-GO) and grant agreement No 703689 (project ADAPT). This work has also been supported by National funds by FCT in the scope of Gabriel Santos PhD (SFRH/BD/118487/2016)info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Market power in the Spanish electricity auction

Market power, Electricity market, L11, L13, L51,