Assessment of electricity distribution business model and market design alternatives: Evidence for policy design

The transition toward smart electricity distribution grids is transforming the European electricity sector. This has contributed to increased attention by policy makers regarding the future role of electricity distribution system operators in a more flexible, digital, and renewables-based electricity system. A better understanding on how to support the adaptation of the electricity distribution industry can contribute to the introduction of an effective policy framework. Our research provides evidence for policy design by presenting the results of a Policy Delphi study focused on business model and market design adaptation alternatives. We highlight the importance of supporting innovation and a more proactive approach to adaptation from both distribution system operators and regulators. Our findings support the importance of electricity distribution for neutral market facilitation, contributing to market development and enabling new market players. The results obtained support policy makers working on electricity sector adaptation and can contribute to the ongoing market redesign efforts under the Energy Union

Technology, business model, and market design adaptation toward smart electricity distribution: Insights for policy making

The transformation of the electricity sector towards a sustainable energy supply and use has a disruptive potential for infrastructure and utilities. The spread of digital technologies, renewable energy, and prosumers requires a swift and well-guided adaptation of the electricity distribution industry to smart grid technologies and related business models. This paper, based on the large technical systems (LTS) conceptual framework, investigates the complex evolution and company and market design adaptation needs. Challenges and opportunities are analyzed through nine multi-stakeholder workshops, held in two EU member states (Germany and Portugal) in 2016–2017, engaging distribution system operators, researchers, academics, and integrated utility companies. The results indicate considerable uncertainty for distribution system operators regarding the value of large-scale smart meter rollouts. Also, a corporate culture with resistance to change is observed, challenging the integration of novel technologies and processes. Traditional regulation is seen as a barrier to smart grid investments, and is associated with job losses and knowledge destruction. Policy-makers can benefit from these insights on the dynamics of DSOs, which can contribute to public policy design and market reform which traditionally has often been mainly concerned about operational efficiency in a steady-state, stable economy

The Critical Role of Public Charging Infrastructure

Editors: Peter Fox-Penner, PhD, Z. Justin Ren, PhD, David O. JermainA decade after the launch of the contemporary global electric vehicle (EV) market, most cities face a major challenge preparing for rising EV demand. Some cities, and the leaders who shape them, are meeting and even leading demand for EV infrastructure. This book aggregates deep, groundbreaking research in the areas of urban EV deployment for city managers, private developers, urban planners, and utilities who want to understand and lead change

Photovoltaic energy diffusion through net-metering and feed-in-tariff policies: learning from Germany, California, Japan and Brazil

Mitigating climate changes and guaranteeing the security of electricity supply are two of the most important drivers behind the adoption of renewable sources support policies. In the last few years, photovoltaic generation has proven growing dynamism and potential through its decreasing costs and accelerated adoption across many countries. Studies indicate that 96.3% of the gloval PV market depends on support schemes. In this context, the most widespread policies supporting photovoltaic generation are net metering and feed-in tariffs. Regarding net metering, California is an outstanding case, which over the past 20 years has played a leading role in photovoltaic energy policies nationally and internationally. Germany, in turn, has also been an early adopter of feed-in tariffs, and has often been signalled for its success in catapulting the country to the forefront of global photovoltaic installed capacity. Additionally, and following this characterization, the study looks at two “later comers”: of Japan and Brazil. Although dissimilar countries both chose to adopt one of the two policy instruments during the same time period. While Japan, in 2011, chose to implement a feed- in tariff scheme, Brazil in 2012 introduced a net-metering solution. Consequently, we evaluate the policies implemented in these two countries, identifying how they differ, and, consequently, if and how they have incorporated the lessons learned from the pioneering regions. Finally, taking into consideration the different trajectories of photovoltaic energy diffusion in the different cases, this study makes an exploratory assessment of the success of the two incentive schemes and their advantages and disadvantages. There exists an indisputable challenge in comparing the performance of policies across different countries, due their heterogeneity, particularly in regards to their socio-economic configuration. Thus, these limitations are taken into consideration when appraising the success of these incentive policies in the different countries. This demonstrates the importance of having a suitable support structure, which goes beyond individual policy tools

DisProt: intrinsic protein disorder annotation in 2020

The Database of Protein Disorder (DisProt, URL: https://disprot.org) provides manually curated annotations of intrinsically disordered proteins from the literature. Here we report recent developments with DisProt (version 8), including the doubling of protein entries, a new disorder ontology, improvements of the annotation format and a completely new website. The website includes a redesigned graphical interface, a better search engine, a clearer API for programmatic access and a new annotation interface that integrates text mining technologies. The new entry format provides a greater flexibility, simplifies maintenance and allows the capture of more information from the literature. The new disorder ontology has been formalized and made interoperable by adopting the OWL format, as well as its structure and term definitions have been improved. The new annotation interface has made the curation process faster and more effective. We recently showed that new DisProt annotations can be effectively used to train and validate disorder predictors. We believe the growth of DisProt will accelerate, contributing to the improvement of function and disorder predictors and therefore to illuminate the ‘dark’ proteome