Workshop – EU Energy Law in Transition: The New Challenges 

As changes in the energy sector have recently gathered pace, this workshop is designed to bring together legal practitioners, regulators, policy makers, and academics, to take stock of the developments and emerging challenges, and to provide a forum for debate on these issues.  

The workshop will be divided into four sessions. 

In the opening session, we will consider the emergence of a new type of energy company and the demise of the vertically integrated utility company, alongside an examination of merger control and innovation. This will be followed by a session on State aid in the energy sector, in which we will review the Andersen ruling and it’s possible impact on ongoing operating aid, and the support of state aid to renewable energy systems. The third session will focus on the new approaches to retail market regulation in relation to the Ofgem consultation on the future of retail market regulation, and will include discussion on the issue from both a national and economic perspective. In the closing session, we will analyse international energy trading, to include discussion of China’s market economy status, the EU-Russia trading dispute before the WTO, and the outcome of the IGA consultation. We expect it to be a very informative and productive workshop.  

This workshop will be hosted by our donor Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP at their Brussels office. 

Deadline for Registration: 18 April 2016

Download the Programme

Register here

Presentations

Current arbitration cases under the Energy Charter Treaty

Liberalisation, Antitrust Enforcement & Capacity Mechanisms

ENGIE: Strong Ambition to Create Value from the Worldwide Energy Transition

What Role for Utilities in 2025?

The implications of restructuring the DSOs in the Flemish region

The Future of the Utilitycompany

The EU-Russia Energy Dispute before the WTO

EU Energy Law in Transition: The New Challenges – Ofgem’s Future Retail Regulation Project

Implementing the Energy Union – Energy Security package

New Approaches to Retail Market Regulation – An Economist’s Viewpoint

Innovations in the Dutch Energy Market

Moderator: Xavier Labandeira, Director, FSR Climate

FSR Regulatory Policy Workshop Series 2015-2016

A review and update of the Gas Target Model was presented by the Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators (ACER) earlier this year. This model, in line with the main targets of a successful Internal Gas Market (IGM), would not only promote competition and fluidity but also suggest a “cooperative approach” among Member States in Europe to cope with possible supply disruptions. It is indeed pivotal to ensure that gas can be traded seamlessly within and across EU internal borders and while the CAM NC substantially contributed to making gas capacity allocation more efficient, the issue of coordination between procurement of capacity and trading of the gas commodity still remains unsettled.

In the early stages of liberalization of the electricity market, the same issue of “lack of coordination” perceived drove market development towards market coupling. Is there an equivalent concept to “market coupling” in electricity which may favour integration of the IGM and make gas trading between hubs and across different zones really seamless?

This workshop will be structured in two sessions. Session I will review the basic features of market coupling and compares them with the current functioning of the IGM, especially with respect to trading within and between (entry-exit) zones. Accordingly to such conclusions, Session II will explore whether an equivalent concept to market coupling can be identified for the gas sector.

This workshop is open exclusively to National Regulators, representatives from public bodies and FSR donors. Special registration requests must be submitted to the Coordinator of this workshop, Ilaria Conti, by e-mail or phone (+39 055 4685 961).

Download the Final Programme

The Energy Union Ahead: Reliable. Sustainable. Competitive.

Registration for the ENTSO-E Annual Conference “The Energy Union Ahead: Reliable, Innovative, Competitive”  on 20 November, 2015 in Brussels is now open.

The Agenda:

A New Deal for the EU post-recession? What should it be based upon? What is the role of the resilient Energy Union? Commission President Juncker has presented ten ambitious priorities, in which a new boost for jobs, growth and investment figures on top. It focuses on better regulation and on large scale public-private investments into innovation and infrastructure across the EU.

What can be achieved by 2019?

ENTSO-E will reveal its recommendations on better regulation in energy, on market design and innovation, on security of supply, and on energy regions. In all of these, innovation on the one hand, and the citizen, on the other, play a central role. With the energy transition, new stakeholders and market players get on board and offer a wide range of opportunities for customers, enabling them to be present in all markets.

Register Today!

DOWNLOAD THE FULL PROGRAMME

Watch the live stream here

This Florence School of Regulation Executive Seminar will take advantage of the World ATM Congress in Madrid to assess and compare the different current regional Air Traffic Management (ATM) initiatives around the world. It will bring together stakeholders from industry, regulators and manufacturers from around the world to discuss the future of Air Traffic Management and compare different regulatory approaches.

Continue reading “Executive Seminar – The Future of Air Traffic Management: what can we learn from each other?”

Book presented by Lucas Bretschger, Professor of Economics, ETH Zurich
Discussant: Peter Cramton, Part-time Professor, Economics Department, EUI
Moderator: Xavier Labandeira, Director, FSR Climate.

Download the presentation of the book

Dowload the book in pdf

The world economy is affecting ecosystems in a way that puts future living standards at risk: it is broadly accepted that the future of our planet should be one of our major concerns. But when it comes to concrete policies, most clearly those related to climate change, grave difficulties arise.

Forward-looking and green policies have always proved to be demanding and controversial. Nevertheless, concepts such as “green economy” and “sustainable development” have prominently entered the political debate, documenting the rising number of bridges between economy and ecology.

This book explains why sustainability policies are not attracting sufficient political support and it provides the elements needed to increase general understanding and to find political consensus.It draws on selected research results to explain the most important sustainability issues from the point of view of economics. It reflects the high complexity of reaching sustainable development, which will require the contribution of social sciences involving many different perspectives.

This book uses neither formal models nor mathematical equations. The approach follows that of the famous economist Alfred Marshall, who advised using formal analysis until the results were fully derived but then to “burn” the mathematics, translate the conclusions into normal language, and illustrate them by “examples that are important in real life.” In following this procedure, this book aims to make the economic approach to sustainability attractive for a broader audience and a useful input to policy making.

About the author
Lucas Bretschger is Full Professor of Economics/Resource Economics at ETH Zurich and President of the European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists (EAERE). He is also a Research Associate of the University of Oxford and holds the title of Professor at the University of Zurich. He has served on many platforms such as the German Board of Environmental and Resource Economics, the Energy Science Centre, the Centre for Corporate Responsibility and Sustainability, and the Alliance for Global Sustainability. In 2004, he founded the now well-established SURED Conference on Monte Verità, which every two years brings together experts on sustainable resource use and economic dynamics.

The Florence School of Regulation is hosting its fifth Policy Advisory Council.

The Policy Advisory Council gather renowned academics, experts from leading energy companies as well as representatives from the European Commission , the Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators ( ACER ) and National Regulatory Authorities ( NRAs ) to discuss the output of the FSR research. Each Policy Advisory Council tests the relevance and robustness of the FSR research findings. After the Council the Florence School redrafts its research output accordingly. The topics of this fourth Council are:

Thursday 5 November 2015

14:00 – 18:00    

• Focus Group 1 on the future of electricity TSOs
• Focus Group 2 on the future of electricity DSOs 

Friday 6 November 2015

8:30 – 13:00

• Focus Group 3 on gas solidarity mechanisms
• FSR Study on gas security of supply and long term contracts 

 13:00 – 14:00   

• Lunch

This is a closed event.

Watch the recordings of the Round Table 

The distributional implications of impacts are increasingly playing a major role in political and socio-economic discussions on climate change, as recently noticed in the rich debate after the publication of the encyclical Laudatio Si.

Ambitious climate policies will also have significant distributive implications, both within and among countries and between generations. Yet most academic efforts, at least in the economics domain, have focused in the design and evaluation of climate policies in terms of cost-effectiveness.

This roundtable intended to foster a deeper understanding on the distributional issues associated to climate change impacts and corrective policies, incorporating academics specialized in different areas of climate change economics and policy, a former policymaker and a Jesuit with relevant involvement in these matters.

Join us in the discussion on shaping the New European landscape for renewable energy incentives.

Watch the debate online now!

Description

• Will we need support schemes for renewable energies also beyond 2020? If “yes”, how should policies be designed?
• How to adapt market design to renewables and support schemes to markets? Will auctions for renewables work in practice? What are positive experiences?
• Which are most important aspects for the 2030 policy package for renewables?

Moderator:

• Mario Ragwitz, Deputy Head of Competence, Center for Energy Policy and Energy Markets, Fraunhofer ISI, Germany

Panelists:

• Dr. Dörte Fouquet, Rechtsanwältin, Partner, Becker Büttner Held PartGmbB
• Jérôme Le Page, Manager for European Electricity Markets, EFET
• Allegra Selvaggi, Advisor Low carbon policies, European Affairs, ENEL
• Paul van Son, Chairman RWE MENA&Turkey and CEO Dii

This workshop brought together legal practitioners, regulators, policy makers and academics to discuss energy law and policy issues of cross-cutting interest. The workshop spanned two days and consisted of six sessions, covering the following topics:

1. Big energy data
2. The new market design initiative and regional electricity markets
3. Integrating RES across Europe
4. The future of the LNG market (roundtable)
5. Network Codes: Implementation and enforcement
6. Unbundling rules and electricity storage

DOWNLOAD THE FULL PROGRAMME HERE

Workshop Interviews

Presentations

Ariel Ezrachi: ‘When robots collude: Artificial intelligence and competition law’

Saverio Massari: ‘The possible future of PV subsidy schemes in the light of the Italian and Turkish cases’

Charles Verhaeghe: ‘Toward a new Target model for European electricity markets’

Francesco Salerno: ‘Nominated Electricity Market Operators (NEMOs) and competition between power exchanges’

George Pedakakis & Maria Psalti: ‘The Greek electricity and gas markets: What brings the new Memorandum of Understanding of 11 August?’

Gabriella Nemeth: ‘Electricity Storage: A flexibility mechanism’

Jim Cardwell: ‘Network embedded electricity storage – a company’s perspective’

Christoph Riechmann: ‘Coordination of capacities to ensure security of supply’

Mats Nilsson: ‘Can we have a market with zero-opex technologies’

Charikleia Vlachou: ‘Network codes as delegated acts: What brings the new commitology regime?’

Florence Melchior: ‘Capacity Allocation and Congestion Management Regulation – Current issues in implementation’

Vito Gonnella: ‘Market and regulatory obstacles at the interface between the TSOs and aggregators’

Edmund Philips: ‘Renewable energy auctions’

Christoph Gatzen: ‘What’s the future of electricity storage in Europe?’

Vincent Rious: ‘International experience with electricity storage’

Erik Rakhou: ‘LNG and Europe’

Railway traffic in Europe has increased over the past decade, and it is the aim of European policy makers to further promote the shift of passenger and cargo traffic from road to rail. However, to make railways the backbone of an efficient, sustainable and cohesive multimodal mobility system, the overall performance of the railway system has to improve. Even though everyone agrees on this, the very definition of performance and especially its  measurement remains controversial.

Continue reading “12th Florence Rail Forum. How to define, measure, and improve the performance of the European railway system?”

The greater penetration of renewable-based generation in the European electricity system, to meet the EU environmental targets for 2020 and beyond, calls for enhanced flexibility of that system. European Regulators already highlighted this development. In their Conclusion Paper of the “Energy Regulation: a Bridge to 2025”[1] initiative of September 2014, they noted that “greater penetration of renewable-based generation is significantly increasing the requirement for market-based flexible response which will include the demand side and the supply side” and, more specifically, that “the continued penetration of non-programmable, renewable-based generation increases the requirement for flexible response. [European regulators] will aim to ensure that barriers to the development of flexible response are removed and that it can be provided by both the supply and the demand sides on a non-discriminatory basis. In particular, an appropriate framework for the evolution of Demand Side Response (DSR) on a non-discriminatory basis will need to be developed so that DSR can be established as a viable product”.

In its February 2015 Communication on A Framework Strategy for a Resilient Energy Union with a Forward-Looking Climate Change Policy[2], the European Commission noted that “market integration of renewable electricity generation requires flexible markets, both on the supply and demand side, within and beyond a Member State’s borders”. To achieve this goal the Commission considers that “electricity grids must […] evolve significantly. There is a need to expand the possibilities for distributed generation and demand-side management, including intraday markets, to develop new high-voltage long distance connections (supergrids) and new storage technologies” and that “closer integration, including on a regional level, more cross-border trade and the development of both short and long term markets will deliver the right investment signals as well as the necessary flexibility to allow market integration of new generation sources”. In this respect, the Commission also announced its intention to “prepare an ambitious legislative proposal to redesign the electricity market [to] ensure that the electricity market will be better adapted to the energy transition which will bring in a multitude of new producers, in particular of renewable energy sources, as well as enable full participation of consumers in the market, notably through demand response”.

Therefore, it is Communication launching the public consultation process on a new energy market design[3], the Commission acknowledges that “today markets are not sufficiently flexible, both on the supply and on the demand-side to accommodate the increased share of renewable energy in the market” and therefore proposes that “the new market design should ensure that energy markets can fully support this transition at minimum cost. This can be achieved by removing the remaining obstacles for renewable energy and ensuring the market provides the right signals for sufficient investment in the flexible capacity needed to accommodate increasing participation of variable renewables in the system. A necessary step to achieve a successful and least-cost integration of renewables is through well-functioning short-term electricity markets, running from the day ahead of the delivery of electricity right up to the moment of consumption, which give full access to flexible technologies”. It also notes that “secure operation of the grid has become more challenging with the rapid growth of variable renewables, and both the demand side and conventional generation plants must be able and incentivised to respond to this flexibility challenge. Integrating storage in the electricity market would further increase the necessary flexibility: electricity should be stored when there is a surplus and prices are low; it should be released when generation is scarce and prices are high, smoothing out variable power production”. There are two separate, albeit related, aspects of flexibility which are relevant when considering it in relation to the greater penetration of renewable-based generation in the European electricity system, and they relate to the need of the system to withstand (i) sudden and (ii) unexpected changes in their output, where:

• Changes might be sudden in the sense that they may have steep gradients;
• Changes might be unexpected, in the sense that they cannot easily predicted with any accuracy.

Similar changes have traditionally occurred with unplanned outages of conventional generation units, but with renewable-based generators they become physiological. Addressing the flexibility challenge facing the electricity sector therefore encompasses several dimensions, including:

• the need to identify the technologies, behaviour and processes which may provide the required greater flexibility to the electricity system;
• an assessment of whether and to what extent the required greater flexibility can be triggered by the current market design. This assessment should include an identification of any appropriate (flexibility) “product” (or products) which can be used to promote a more flexible electricity system and the way in which these product can be handled or traded;
• on the basis of the above assessment and depending on its outcome (e.g. the identification of new “flexibility products”), whether the current market design is still fit for purpose or requires an enhancement to promote the provision of flexibility into the market and, if so, in which resect.

In this context, this Workshop aims at:

• providing a forum where technologies, behaviour and processes which are able to provide the required flexibility to the electricity system can be presented and discussed;
• identifying whether, and in which respect, an enhancement of the current electricity market design is needed to promote greater flexibility of the electricity system;
• defining the regulatory actions required to support such developments.

Accordingly, the Workshop will be structured in two sessions. Session I will focus on the technologies, behaviour and processes which may provide the required greater flexibility to the electricity system. Session II will identify any required market design and regulatory action to ensure that such flexibility is provided in the market in the most efficient way.

[1] Recommendation of the Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators No 05/2014 of 19 September 2014 on the regulatory response to the future challenges emerging from developments in the internal energy market. [2] COM(2015) 80 final, 25.2.2015. [3] COM(2015) 340 final, 17.7.2015. An updated version of the programme can be downloaded below. Registration is now open.