IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/enepol/v105y2017icp597-607.html

Tales of two islands – Lessons for EU energy policy from electricity market reforms in Britain and Ireland

Author

Listed:
  • Newbery, David

Abstract

Britain considers the energy-only EU Target Electricity Model (TEM) wanting in delivering the trilemma of reliability, sustainability and affordability and argues that a capacity auction with long-term contracts for new entrants is the least-cost solution compared to relying on expectations of future prices to deliver adequate generation and demand side response. The Energy Union argues against feed-in tariffs (FiTs) for renewables, pressing for premium FiTs (pFiTs), just as GB has abandoned PFiTs in favour of FiTs. This paper draws on the GB experience of Electricity Market Reform before and after the 2015 change of government, to highlight promising resolutions of the energy trilemma, and the problems that have arisen between the diagnosis of the problem and the delivery of solutions. It sets out the theory and practice of delivering capacity, energy and quality of supply, gives a brief history of GB electricity from the CEGB to its current unbundled, liberalized and privatized structure. That sheds light on the trilemma problem and discusses possible solutions. The island of Ireland Single Electricity Market reforms illustrate the problem and possible answer of how best to deliver quality of service with high intermittency.

Suggested Citation

  • Newbery, David, 2017. "Tales of two islands – Lessons for EU energy policy from electricity market reforms in Britain and Ireland," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 105(C), pages 597-607.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:enepol:v:105:y:2017:i:c:p:597-607
    DOI: 10.1016/j.enpol.2016.10.015
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421516305602
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.enpol.2016.10.015?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. repec:aen:journl:2005se-a03 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. repec:aen:eeepjl:eeep4-2-newbery is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Newbery, David M., 2016. "Towards a green energy economy? The EU Energy Union’s transition to a low-carbon zero subsidy electricity system – Lessons from the UK’s Electricity Market Reform," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 179(C), pages 1321-1330.
    4. Claire M. Weiller & Michael G. Pollitt, 2013. "Platform Markets and Energy Services," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 1361, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    5. Andrew Sweeting, 2007. "Market Power In The England And Wales Wholesale Electricity Market 1995-2000," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 117(520), pages 654-685, April.
    6. Green, Richard J & Newbery, David M, 1992. "Competition in the British Electricity Spot Market," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 100(5), pages 929-953, October.
    7. Newbery, David M., 1998. "The regulator's review of the English Electricity Pool," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 7(3), pages 129-141, November.
    8. repec:aen:journl:1995v16-03-a02 is not listed on IDEAS
    9. repec:aen:eeepjl:1_1_07 is not listed on IDEAS
    10. Blaise Allaz & Jean-Luc Vila, 1993. "Cournot Competition, Forward Markets and Efficiency," Post-Print hal-00511806, HAL.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Newbery, David M. & Greve, Thomas, 2017. "The strategic robustness of oligopoly electricity market models," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 124-132.
    2. Holmberg, Pär & Newbery, David, 2010. "The supply function equilibrium and its policy implications for wholesale electricity auctions," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 18(4), pages 209-226, December.
    3. Fabra, Natalia, 2021. "The energy transition: An industrial economics perspective," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    4. Wölfing, Nikolas, 2019. "Forward trading and collusion in supply functions," ZEW Discussion Papers 19-003, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    5. Tarufelli, Brittany L., 2021. "Strategic Behavior and Market Design in Regional Climate Policy," SocArXiv x96ge, Center for Open Science.
    6. repec:osf:socarx:x96ge_v1 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. Carlos Suarez, 2021. "Mixed Oligopoly and Market Power Mitigation: Evidence from the Colombian Wholesale Electricity Market," IREA Working Papers 202101, University of Barcelona, Research Institute of Applied Economics, revised Jan 2021.
    8. Brown, David P. & Eckert, Andrew & Silveira, Douglas, 2023. "Screening for collusion in wholesale electricity markets: A literature review," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 85(C).
    9. Lundin, Erik & Tangerås, Thomas P., 2020. "Cournot competition in wholesale electricity markets: The Nordic power exchange, Nord Pool," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 68(C).
    10. Moritz Bohland & Sebastian Schwenen, 2020. "Technology Policy and Market Structure: Evidence from the Power Sector," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 1856, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    11. Holmberg, Pär & Newbery, David & Ralph, Daniel, 2013. "Supply function equilibria: Step functions and continuous representations," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 148(4), pages 1509-1551.
    12. Schill, Wolf-Peter, 2011. "Electric Vehicles in Imperfect Electricity Markets: The case of Germany," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 39(10), pages 6178-6189.
    13. Heikki Peura & Derek W. Bunn, 2015. "Dynamic Pricing of Peak Production," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 63(6), pages 1262-1279, December.
    14. Aitor Ciarreta & María Espinosa, 2010. "Market power in the Spanish electricity auction," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 37(1), pages 42-69, February.
    15. Newbery, David, 2016. "Missing money and missing markets: Reliability, capacity auctions and interconnectors," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 94(C), pages 401-410.
    16. Sijm, Jos & Chen, Yihsu & Hobbs, Benjamin F., 2012. "The impact of power market structure on CO2 cost pass-through to electricity prices under quantity competition – A theoretical approach," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(4), pages 1143-1152.
    17. Robert A. Ritz, 2018. "Oligopolistic competition and welfare," Chapters, in: Luis C. Corchón & Marco A. Marini (ed.), Handbook of Game Theory and Industrial Organization, Volume I, chapter 7, pages 181-200, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    18. Joseph Mullins & Liam Wagner & John Foster, 2010. "Price Spikes in Electricity Markets: A Strategic Perspective," Energy Economics and Management Group Working Papers 05, School of Economics, University of Queensland, Australia.
    19. van Koten, Silvester & Ortmann, Andreas, 2013. "Structural versus behavioral remedies in the deregulation of electricity markets: An experimental investigation motivated by policy concerns," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 256-265.
    20. Giulietti, Monica & Grossi, Luigi & Waterson, Michael, 2010. "Price transmission in the UK electricity market: Was NETA beneficial?," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(5), pages 1165-1174, September.
    21. Tashpulatov, Sherzod N., 2013. "Estimating the volatility of electricity prices: The case of the England and Wales wholesale electricity market," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 81-90.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:enepol:v:105:y:2017:i:c:p:597-607. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/enpol .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.