FSR

What impact will the energy transition have on electricity prices for consumer? Monika de Volder, Senior Economic Officer at BEUC – The European Consumers Organisation, discusses with Joana Freitas, Ambassador for the FSR Lights on Women initiative, the expected impact of increased renewables and consumer-oriented services in the retail electricity prices. Monika de Volder starts by noting that, against public expectations, electricity prices for households have been increasing over the last ten years – “We see more and more liberalization, which we would expect to result in more competition and better services and lower prices for consumers. Yet we don’t see that in every country”. In fact, renewables are very often blamed for increasing electricity prices. However, as Monika de Volder refers, renewables are the best alternative to reduce the dependence on fossil fuels. In the future, the introduction of new demand response services might allow consumers to capture the positive effect of the lower marginal cost of renewables. “Consumers will participate [in the electricity market], but it needs to be financially worth it without any trade offs for them”, Monika de Volder says. On the other hand, the digitalization of the electricity sector may also bring benefits for consumers. Monika de Volder describes it as a “game changer”, as it will lead to a much more efficient and reliable system. While the electricity system is going through a deep transformation,“energy poor or vulnerable consumers are one of the highest challenges we are facing today”.

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Why do TSOs and DSOs need to cooperate more than in the past? Viviana Vitto, Head of Market Studies and Strategic Analysis at Enel Global Infrastructure and Networks, joins Joana Freitas, Ambassador of the Lights on Women initiative of the FSR, to discuss how the energy transition is shaping the need and configuration of TSO/DSO coordination. In Viviana’s perspective, decentralized generation, electrification and electric vehicles are growing at a fast pace and, given this new context, “TSOs and DSOs have just not the need but the responsibility to cooperate in order to rethink the energy system”. In fact, several European grid operators have been participating in TSO/DSO coordination pilots, as CoordiNet and SmartNet. The Clean Energy Package also paves the way to a closer cooperation between TSOs and DSOs. One of the measures determined by this package is the creation of a DSO entity, which, in Viviana’s view, “will play an important role to implement this cooperation and identifying the needs of the future system”. Vivana also notes that regulation is one of the key enablers of TSO/DSO coordination – “[TSO/DSO coordination] cannot be fast enough without the supportive regulatory framework”. While the electricity system is evolving at a fast pace, driving TSOs and DSOs to cooperate more than in the past...we need to keep all the options open for the time being”.

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Will Europe be able to achieve 100% renewables by 2050? Albert Cheung, Head of Global Analysis at Bloomberg NEF, talks to Joana Freitas, Ambassador for the Lights on Women initiative of the FSR, about the key obstacles and challenges of an energy system with high penetration of renewables. According to Albert Cheung, although solar and wind are becoming the cheapest forms of power generation, “there are a lot of obstacles and it's a really long road to get to those sorts of high penetrations”. As 100% renewables also mean a zero-carbon power system, it will require a “huge collaborative effort between government, energy companies and the investment community”. Despite the obstacles, several European countries are already setting ambitious targets for the next decade – by 2030, Austria expects to achieve 100% of renewables in electricity consumption while UK will be coal free by 2025. Albert Cheung also notes that this change of paradigm will require “massive amounts of flexibility” as an “energy system that has 90 percent renewables in 2050 is going to operate very differently from the one that we have today”.

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The Head of the Innovation Area at the FSR, M. Vazquez discusses the potential of peer-to-peer contracts and decentralised technologies in the energy sector with Rolf Riemenschneider (European Commission, DG Connect).

The interview has been conducted in the context of the Workshop: Digital Energy Marketplaces, held on 17 September in Florence. More info here: https://fsr.eui.eu/event/dlt-smart-contracts-digitalisation-energy/

The Florence School of Regulation invited Jorge Moreno, Partner at inodú, to discuss inodú’s latest publication, which reviews Chile’s decarbonisation efforts. In the podcast, Pradyumna Bhagwat (Research Fellow, FSR) and Mr Moreno discuss decarbonisation measures undertaken by the Chilean Government, their impact and recommendations for rapid decarbonisation in the future.

Chile has committed to reducing its CO2 emission per GDP unit to 30% below the 2007 levels by 2030 as ratified under the Paris agreement. In view of reaching carbon neutrality by 2050, several steps have been taken by the Chilean Government. Working groups were established to develop a conversion and retirement schedule for existing coal generation facilities. An example of the impact is the June 2019 agreement between generation companies and the government to retire eight coal units (1047 MW) over 5 years.

Some of the key recommendations presented in their article while closing coal plants are: 1) Provide certainty on new environmental requirements such as emissions restrictions; 2) Communicate the closure in advance; 3) Establish an early definition of goals and purpose for the site; 4) Conduct environmental research early for the site; 5) Address the economic challenges created by the plant’s decommissioning; 6) define the closing firm’s responsibility; 7) Use multi-stakeholder groups to identify potential uses for the site; 8) Establish opportunities for third parties to present possible development alternatives for the site; and 9) Define the role of the municipality and key local stakeholders.

Aggregators in the Clean Energy Package: Opportunities and Difficulties as Enablers for Decentralised Actors

In this podcast, Dr. Maximilian Wimmer, senior researcher at the Foundation for Environmental Energy law (Stiftung Umweltenergierecht), analyses aggregators’ opportunities and difficulties as enablers for decentralised actors in the future energy market with a view on the relevant legal framework found in the “Clean Energy for All Europeans Package”.

In the near future, aggregators are likely to play an important role as enablers for decentralised market actors like consumers, prosumers, active customers and energy communities. With the help of aggregation, it will be possible to reduce prices on control reserves and wholesale markets by combining several different units and optimising their demand and supply behaviours. For consumers and prosumers participating in aggregation services, it will have the potential to lower balancing costs and decrease the energy bill. Further, the aggregator can take the role of the intermediary between decentralised actors and the market and can help small actors like renewable self-consumers, active customers, or small businesses to participate in the electricity market.

Although there are many opportunities for aggregation business models, there are also various barriers. While several aggregation models already exist, the main problems lie with market access, local settlement and the access to or exchange of data. From a legal point of view, the Clean Energy for All Europeans Package provides various legislative acts that concern aggregators or aggregation and will oblige the Member States to take action in these areas. In particular, the Internal Electricity Regulation and Directive as well as the Renewable Energy Directive have to be examined. In this context, the three year Horizon2020 project “BestRES”, with a collaboration of nine partner countries, analysed the current and future situation for aggregators. It identified relevant barriers and possible solutions for a legal framework on European and national level.

For further information and to find out more about BestRES, please visit http://bestres.eu/ or read the reports on the development of a legal framework here: http://bestres.eu/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/BestRES-5.2_National-framework-for-RES-aggregationSUER.pdf

http://bestres.eu/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/BestRES-5.2_National-framework-for-RES-aggregationSUER.pdf

http://bestres.eu/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/BestRES_D5.3_European_framework-for-RES-aggregationSUER.pdf

Wind power industry has been a great success in Brazil, the installed capacity of wind power has increased from less than 1 GW in 2010 to more than 15 GW in 2019 in more than 600 wind farms, accounting for more than 9% of the Brazilian electricity matrix, with an 80% nationalized production chain. Today, wind Energy is the second largest source of electric energy in Brazil. In this podcast we talk with Elbia Gannoum, who as ABEEólica´s CEO has been active in strengthening the sustainable growth of wind energy in Brazil.

Elbia Gannoum has been the CEO of ABEEÓLICA, the Brazilian Wind Energy Associatio, since September 2011. She was a Member of the Board of CCEE, the Electrical Energy Chamber of Commerce from June 2006 to April 2011. She was a Chief Economist to the Ministry of Mines and Energy (2003-2006, Coordinator of the Political Institute of the Ministry of Finance (2002-2003), Advisor of Economic Affairs to the Ministry of Mines and Energy (2001), Advisor to ANEEL (2001-2001), and Professor of the Federal University of Santa Catarina (1998-2000).

This podcast was created as a part of the FSR’s Lights on Women initiative in joint partnership with Inter-American Development Bank under the Lights on Women LAC Edition series. Learn more about the Lights on Women LAC Edition here: medium.com/lights-on-women/lig…dition-2a0211b1c456

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Francesco Ferioli (European Commission, DG Energy) in an interview with Ilaria Conti (FSR) focuses on the question how Power-to-Gas technology could impact the future supply and demand equilibrium in the electricity sector. Mr Ferioli explains that due to its flexibility potential Power-to-Gas could help hedge the risks for renewable electricity producers in a more efficient way than Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs) and batteries.

The podcast recorded on the margins of training “Power to the molecules (from technology to market uptake)” on 11 and 12 July 2019 in Florence.

Link to training page: https://fsr.eui.eu/training/energy/power-to-the-molecules-from-technology-to-market-uptake/

On the margins of the training “Power to the molecules (from technology to market uptake)” on 11 and 12 July 2019, Ilaria Conti (Head of FSR Gas) interviews Martina Conton (EU Policy manager at The Natural & bio Gas Vehicle Association Europe). Within the framework of the recently published EU long-term strategy, NGVA expects the hydrogen to play a more and more important role in the transport sector, mainly as blended with methane. However, since Power-to-Gas is perceived as not fully mature technology, the feasibility, cost and the sustainability of hydrogen are still to be assessed.

Link to training page: https://fsr.eui.eu/training/energy/power-to-the-molecules-from-technology-to-market-uptake/

The Andean Electric Interconnexion System Initiative (SINEA by its acronym in Spanish) was created in 2011 by Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Perú and Bolivia (as an observer country) with the goal of advancing the integration of their electric systems. SINEA´s coordination rotates annually in July, this year Chile has the task of moving the path of electricity integration forward in the region. According to Paula Estevez, Energy Integration is a priority for Chile, as “Interconnected systems are more robust, resilient, and provide greater security in energy emergencies, and also they enable a higher penetration of variable renewable energies as solar and wind because they give greater flexibility to the systems”.

Listen to the podcast in Spanish here: http://bit.ly/2LnyWuI

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