Smart Regulation for Smart Grids

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 the electricity system. In this paper, we analyze what is expected from grids and what are the regulatory tools that could be used to align the incentives of grid companies and grid users with what is expected from them. We look at three empirical cases to see which regulatory tools have already been applied and find that smart grids need a coherent regulatory framework addressing grid services, grid technology innovation and grid user participation to the ongoing grid innovation. The paper concludes with what appears to be a smart regulation for smart grids.Regulation, innovation, electricity, grids, transmission, distribution

Decarbonizing the European Electric Power Sector by 2050: A tale of three studies

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 consequently published a study elaborating on the final goal of this transition. The studies project scenarios of how such a (near-) zero electricity system would look like and provide recommendations on the policies needed to guide the transition. In this paper, we observe that these studies tell a tale with many similarities. In spite of increased energy efficiency, the electricity demand is projected to increase substantially, with up to 50% from today towards 2050, due to shifts from other sectors towards electricity. This demand will be supplied by a minimum of 40% electricity generation by RES, with the remainder being filled up with nuclear and fossils with CCS. The importance of grid reinforcement, expansion, and planning in this context is emphasized in all three studies. While all three studies further recommend relying on the EU ETS for the transition, the European Climate Foundation and the International Energy Agency consider continuing with targets for RES in combination with a more harmonized EU RES support scheme.European Energy Policy; Electric power generation; decarbonization

Smart Cities Initiative: How to Foster a Quick Transition Towards Local Sustainable Energy Systems

QM-AI-11-002-EN-C (print)/QM-AI-11-002-EN-N (online)THINK Policy Briefs are abbreviated versions of THINK Reports.The EU is subscribing to the international trend of local governments becoming more involved in climate change policy-making and higher levels of government encouraging this trend. With the Covenant of Mayors, the EU has already been successful in voluntarily committing city authorities to reduce their CO2 emissions by at least 20% by 2020. The ambition of the Smart Cities Initiative is to speed up the transition towards local sustainable energy systems. A portfolio of smart cities that represents the population of European cities should be selected, consisting of cities with different energy fundamentals, a different political economy, and different institutional capacities. The cities in this portfolio need to be given the institutional flexibility (human and financial resources) to conceive and manage the implementation of concepts of city smartness, i.e. to lead by example (first level of city smartness: city as a public actor), to govern the actions by the private urban actors (second level of city smartness: city as a local policy maker), and to promote an integrated approach (third level of city smartness: city as a coordinator). To have an impact, the initiative needs to establish a strict performance reporting methodology (currently, city pioneer experiences are difficult to compare or replicate because of a lack of reporting, and pioneers that do report, use very different reporting methodologies), which would allow the creation of a good-practice forum or register. An EU level legislative initiative to require all cities to report about their progress or lack of progress is also recommended to further improve the impact of the initiative.The THINK project (2010-2013) is funded by the European Commission under the Seventh Framework Programme, Strategic Energy Technology Plan. (Call FP7-ENERGY-2009-2, Grant Agreement no: 249736). Coordinator: Prof. Jean-Michel Glachant and Dr. Leonardo Meeus, Florence School of Regulation, Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies, European University Institut

THINK Half-Way and Beyond

THINK is a Think Tank advising the European Commission on mid- and long-term energy policy. QM-32-12-022-EN-C (print) QM-32-12-022-EN-N (digital)Energy regulation and policy currently belong to the most important and developing areas in the European Union. THINK, the Florence School of Regulation’s (EUI) think tank advises the European Commission (DG Energy) on Energy Policy and presents policy options each semester. This booklet gives an overview of all the THINK results for the first 18 months of the project focusing on 6 topics: 1. Public Support for the Financing of RD&D Activities in New Clean Energy Technologies 2. Smart Cities Initiative: Fostering a Quick Transition Towards Local Sustainable Energy Systems 3. Transition Towards a Low Carbon Energy System by 2050: What Role for the EU? 4. The Impact of Climate and Energy Policies on the Public Budget of EU Member States 5. Off-Shore Grids: Towards a Least Regret EU Policy 6. EU Involvement in Electricity and Natural Gas Transmission Grid Tarification.The THINK project (2010-2013) is funded by the European Commission under the Seventh Framework Programme, Strategic Energy Technology Plan. (Call FP7-ENERGY-2009-2, Grant Agreement no: 249736). Coordinator: Prof. Jean-Michel Glachant and Dr. Leonardo Meeus, Florence School of Regulation, Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies, European University Institute.Foreword 1 Preface 2 Introduction to the THINK Project 4 The Role of the Expert Hearings in the THINK Report Production Process 6 The Role of the Scientific Council in the THINK Report Production Process 8 THINK Report Policy briefs 11 a. Topic 1: Public Support for the Financing of RD&D Activities in New Clean Energy Technologies 13 b. Topic 2: Smart Cities Initiative: How to Foster a Quick Transition Towards Local Sustainable Energy Systems 21 c. Topic 3: Transition Towards a Low Carbon Energy System by 2050: What Role for the EU? 27 d. Topic 4: The Impact of Climate and Energy Policies on the Public Budget of EU Member States 35 e. Topic 5: Offshore Grids: Towards a Least Regret EU Policy 43 f . Topic 6: EU Involvement In Electricity and Natural Gas Transmission Grid Tarification 53 People 61 Scientific Council 63 Florence-based Research Team 7

Lacking balancing market harmonisation in Europe: room for trader profits at the expense of economic efficiency?

Following several regional initiatives on the day-ahead and intra-day stage, integrating real-time balancing markets constitutes a logical next step in the process towards an Internal Electricity Market (IEM) in Europe. So far, realtime balancing market designs significantly differ between European countries and a coordinated approach for cross-border exchange of balancing services is non-existent. This paper aims to illustrate that the current lack of balancing market harmonisation – in combination with an increasingly integrated day-ahead and intra-day trade – can be profitably exploited by traders. More specifically, trading strategies taking advantage of structural design differences in the imbalance settlement of two countries are identified and assessed. The paper analyses detailed data of the Belgian and French power system using statistics in order to verify the profitability of different trading strategies between both countries. Some of the identified trading strategies are found to be significantly profitable; others turn out to be loss-making. On average, France was the most attractive country for traders to be long in 2008; Belgium to be short. Profitable trading strategies can usally be carried out without any expense as cross-border capacities available at the intra-day stage are currently far from being used and no value is attributed to them. However, some profitable trading activities resulting from market design imperfections may induce economic inefficiencies

Smart Cities Initiative: how to foster a quick transition towards local sustainable energy systems

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 energy services, to improve the uptake of energy efficient technologies and to improve the uptake of renewables in the urban environment. We find that enough resources will need to be provided to a significant number of pioneering cities, and propose that the initiative would allocate these resources through project competition, rewarding innovation, ambition and performance, which have been ingredients of success at Member State level.Smart Cities; sustainable local energy systems; city authority incentives; EU energy policy

Sculpting the disk around T Cha: an interferometric view

(Abridged) Circumstellar disks are believed to be the birthplace of planets and are expected to dissipate on a timescale of a few Myr. The processes responsible for the removal of the dust and gas will strongly modify the radial distribution of the dust and consequently the SED. In particular, a young planet will open a gap, resulting in an inner disk dominating the near-IR emission and an outer disk emitting mostly in the far-IR. We analyze a full set of data (including VLTI/Pionier, VLTI/Midi, and VLT/NaCo/Sam) to constrain the structure of the transition disk around TCha. We used the Mcfost radiative transfer code to simultaneously model the SED and the interferometric observations. We find that the dust responsible for the emission in excess in the near-IR must have a narrow temperature distribution with a maximum close to the silicate sublimation temperature. This translates into a narrow inner dusty disk (0.07-0.11 AU). We find that the outer disk starts at about 12 AU and is partially resolved by the Pionier, Sam, and Midi instruments. We show that the Sam closure phases, interpreted as the signature of a candidate companion, may actually trace the asymmetry generated by forward scattering by dust grains in the upper layers of the outer disk. These observations help constrain the inclination and position angle of the outer disk. The presence of matter inside the gap is difficult to assess with present-day observations. Our model suggests the outer disk contaminates the interferometric signature of any potential companion that could be responsible for the gap opening, and such a companion still has to be unambiguously detected. We stress the difficulty to observe point sources in bright massive disks, and the consequent need to account for disk asymmetries (e.g. anisotropic scattering) in model-dependent search for companions.Comment: Removed the word "first" in the abstract of the paper: "obtained with the first 4-telescope combiner (VLTI/Pionier)

Five Millennium Catalog of Solar Eclipses: -1999 to +3000 (2000 BCE to 3000 CE)-Revised

This catalog is a supplement to the "Five Millennium Canon of Lunar Eclipses. "It includes additional information for each eclipse that could not be included in the original publication because of size limits. The data tabulated for each eclipse include the catalog number, canon plate number, calendar date, Terrestrial Dynamical Time of greatest eclipse, (Delta)T, lunation number, Saros number, eclipse type, Quincena Solar Eclipse parameter, gamma, penumbral and umbral eclipse magnitudes, durations of penumbral, partial and total eclipse phases, and geographic coordinates of greatest eclipse(latitude and longitude). The Canon and the Catalog both use the same solar and lunar ephemerides as well as the same values of (Delta)T. This 1-to-1 correspondence between them will enhance the value of each. The researcher may now search, evaluate, and compare eclipses graphically (Canon) or textually (Catalog)

Lacking balancing market harmonisation in Europe: room for trader profits at the expense of economic efficiency?

International audienceFollowing several regional initiatives on the day-ahead and intra-day stage, integrating real-time balancing markets constitutes a logical next step in the process towards an Internal Electricity Market (IEM) in Europe. So far, realtime balancing market designs significantly differ between European countries and a coordinated approach for cross-border exchange of balancing services is non-existent. This paper aims to illustrate that the current lack of balancing market harmonisation – in combination with an increasingly integrated day-ahead and intra-day trade – can be profitably exploited by traders. More specifically, trading strategies taking advantage of structural design differences in the imbalance settlement of two countries are identified and assessed. The paper analyses detailed data of the Belgian and French power system using statistics in order to verify the profitability of different trading strategies between both countries. Some of the identified trading strategies are found to be significantly profitable; others turn out to be loss-making. On average, France was the most attractive country for traders to be long in 2008; Belgium to be short. Profitable trading strategies can usally be carried out without any expense as cross-border capacities available at the intra-day stage are currently far from being used and no value is attributed to them. However, some profitable trading activities resulting from market design imperfections may induce economic inefficiencie

Five Millennium Catalog of Lunar Eclipses: -1999 to +3000 (2000 BCE to 3000 CE)

This catalog is a supplement to the "FiveMillenniumCanonofLunarEclipses." It includes additional information for each eclipse that could not be included in the original publication because of size limits. The data tabulated for each eclipse include the catalog number, canon plate number, calendar date, Terrestrial Dynamical Time of greatest eclipse, (Delta)T, lunation number, Saros number, eclipse type, Quincena Solar Eclipse parameter, gamma, penumbral and umbral eclipse magnitudes, durations of penumbral, partial and total eclipse phases, and geographic coordinates of greatest eclipse (latitude and longitude). The Canon and the Catalog both use the same solar and lunar ephemerides as well as the same values of (Delta)T. This 1-to-1 correspondence between them will enhance the value of each. The researcher may now search, evaluate, and compare eclipses graphically (Canon) or textually (Catalog)