Cédric Clastres

Demand side management in an integrated electricity market: What are the impacts on generation and environmental concerns?

Smart Grid technology appears necessary to succeed in activating the demand through demand side management (DSM) programs. This would in turn improve energy efficiency and achieve environmental targets through controlled consumption. The many pilot projects led worldwide involving smart grids technology, brought quantitative evaluations of DSM measures on electricity load. Efficient DSM instruments must be fine tuned to respond to very specific issues arising from the generation mix, the integration of intermittent energies or the level of outage risks faced during peak period. Efficient DSM strategies are illustrated through a model involving five countries that carry these different features and under the assumptions of isolated and fully interconnected markets. This paper aims at bringing recommendations regarding the instruments that should be implemented to maximize the benefits of smart grids technology and demand response. Finally, it tends to emphasis the issue of homogenized energy efficiency policies, critical in the building of internal energy markets such as the one the European Union is envisioning.

European Union energy security: The challenges of liberalisation in a risk-prone international environment

The liberalisation of European energy markets and their integration into a single market are under way. However, the energy environment of the European Union as well as its own internal situation have undergone profound changes. The energy security of member states is therefore an important issue that should be examined. The energy security of member states is therefore an important issue that should be examined. This security concerns gas markets with the problem of long-term contracts between suppliers and consumers and also electricity markets, because of the increasing use of natural gas to generate electricity. Lack of investment is also a problem. Energy market players have to manage security concerns in these two markets in order to supply socially and economically essential commodities. In this article, we examine two main topics. The first is related to the European Unions capacity to solve the problem of investment in transmission and peak power generation by finding internal solutions. The second concerns the upstream structure of the gas market, namely the problem of investing in transnational gas pipelines, and relations with gas suppliers outside the EU.

Capacity release, asymmetric regulation and competition in energy markets

Regulators or competition commission could adopt capacity release to increase competition in electricity and gas markets and to secure part of competitorssupplies. These policies, that we could define as asymmetric regulations, have been decided in France, Italy, Great-Britain, Spain, etc… These regulatory policies force the incumbent to release part of its capacity of supply to competitors to enhance competition. So, regulators have to choose the amount of released capacities and the associated price. They could effectively improve competition because they give a capacity access to competitors. However, according to heavy investments in infrastructures, stranded costs emerge. Thus, policy makers have to suit their policies to maximize the welfare and to reduce losses.