EU emissions trading in a crowded national climate policy space – some findings from the INTERACT project

Climate policy in EU Member States is becoming increasingly crowded. Multiple instruments have been introduced at both the Member State and EU levels and new instruments are regularly being proposed. As the number of instruments grows, so does the potential for interaction between them. This interaction can be complementary and mutually reinforcing, but there is also the risk that different policy instruments will interfere with one another and undermine the objectives and credibility of each. The central aim of the EU-funded research project “Interaction in EU Climate Policy” (INTERACT) has been to develop a systematic approach to analysing policy interaction and to use this approach to explore the potential interactions between the proposed EU Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS) and other instruments within both EU and Member State climate policy

CO2 cost pass through and windfall profits in the power sector’

This paper analyses the implications of the EU ETS for the power sector, notably the impact of free allocation of CO2 emission allowances on the price of electricity and the profitability of power generation. Besides some theoretical reflections, the paper presents empirical and model estimates of CO2 cost pass through, indicating that pass through rates vary between 40 and 100 percent of CO2 costs, or – in absolute terms – between 3 and 18 €/MWh, depending on the carbon intensity of the marginal production unit and other, market or technology specific factors concerned. As a result, power companies realise substantial windfall profits, indicated by empirical and model estimates presented in the paper. In order to avoid these windfall profits, the paper concludes that free allocation to power companies should be phased out in favour of auctioning

An investigation of learning outcomes for MSc programs in Network and System Administration

What is the essence of a graduate-level system administration education? What skills and abilities of the candidate should educators focus on when developing a new program? This paper investigates the learning outcomes from three MSc graduate programs in network and system administration. We use a tournament-based game as a survey to establish a ranking of all the outcomes from the programs. Our results show a clear emphasis on security and the ability to create working solutions based on abstract descriptions

Mogelijke oorzaken van zwarte spruiten in lelie: praktijkproef bij VWS, in samenwerking met PPO

In de broeierij van lelie, en met name bij de Oriëntals, is het ontstaan van zwarte spruiten een groot probleem dat jaarlijks vele tonnen schade oplevert. Zwarte spruiten is het verschijnsel waarbij leliespruiten tijdens de bewaring in ijs geheel of gedeeltelijk zwart worden, afsterven en volledig verloren gaan voor de bloemproductie. Bij VWS is een uitgebreide praktijkproef uitgevoerd waarin bij 3 partijen van de cultivar Conca d’Or, afkomstig van verschillende telers, de rol van de volgende factoren in het ontstaan van zwarte spruiten is onderzocht: de temperatuur tussen rooien en invriezen, het moment van invriezen en de invriestemperatuur, de ademhaling van de bollen tijdens de bewaring, het zuurstofgehalte in de kisten, het vochtgehalte van het vulmiddel en het suiker- en zetmeelgehalte van de bollen tijdens de bewaring

Classifying and modelling demand response in power systems

Demand response (DR) is expected to play a major role in integrating large shares of variable renewable energy (VRE) sources in power systems. For example, DR can increase or decrease consumption depending on the VRE availability, and use generating and network assets more efficiently. Detailed DR models are usually very complex, hence, unsuitable for large-scale energy models, where simplicity and linearity are key elements to keep a reasonable computational performance. In contrast, aggregated DR models are usually too simplistic and therefore conclusions derived from them may be misleading. This paper focuses on classifying and modelling DR in large-scale models. The first part of the paper classifies different DR services, and provides an overview of benefits and challenges. The second part presents mathematical formulations for different types of DR ranging from curtailment and ideal shifting, to shifting including saturation and immediate load recovery. Here, we suggest a collection of linear constraints that are appropriate for large-scale power systems and integrated energy system models, but sufficiently sophisticated to capture the key effects of DR in the energy system. We also propose a mixed-integer programming formulation for load shifting that guarantees immediate load recovery, and its linear relaxation better approximates the exact solution compared with previous models