Verteilungswirkungen des EEG

The Renewal Energies Act has so far been one of the cornerstones of the energy revolution. As a result of the Act the production of electricity from renewable sources has been considerably increased. As the most expensive forms of renewable energies have grown fastest, average costs have not shrunk but have risen significantly. The ongoing growth led to increasing subsidies for renewable energies and growing costs for electricity consumers in business and private households. It would be insufficient to look at absolute cost developments only, as distribution effects may be critical. As electricity consumption only slightly depends on household income, higher income leads to lower significance of electricity costs. Therefore, low income households bear a relatively higher burden of costs for renewable energies. Furthermore, wealthy households could benefit from the subsidies as they can invest in renewable energy systems.     

Analyse der Marktaussichten von Biogasanlagen

Without guaranteed compensation, granted by the German Renewable Energy Sources Act (Erneuerbare Energien Gesetz/EEG), biogas plants compete with all other plant types on the market for electrical energy. However, exchange-based electricity products do not currently permit an economically viable operation of biogas plants owing to their cost situation.     

Die Verteilung der Kosten des Ausbaus der Erneuerbaren

Germany’s private and industrial consumers have to bear electricity prices that are among the highest in Europe, a major reason being the massive subsidization of green electricity via feed-in tariffs. To dampen future electricity cost increases, numerous suggestions were published recently. They differ substantially with respect to their distributional impacts, transaction costs, political feasibility, and their impact on the cost-effectiveness of the future promotion of renewable technologies. This article’s qualitative evaluation of the most prominent proposals indicates that, more or less, they all fall short with respect to these evaluation criteria. In conclusion, decision-makers would be well advised to reconsider Germany’s renewable energy goals. Consideration should be given to either abolishing these ambitious goals or to improving the cost-effectiveness of the future expansion of renewable energy technologies to dampen the likely continued increase in electricity prices.     

Zur Methodik von Effizienzbewertungen im energiewirtschaftlichen Kontext

In discussions concerning sustainability, climate change and the efficient use of resources, the terms energy efficiency, rational use of energy and resource efficiency are widely used. Each of those three terms corresponds to an assessment method. However, the terms and assessment methods are often used differently without an explicit definition of the actual approach. Therefore the major contribution of this article is the development of a framework of methodological characteristics to classify the three assessment methods.The three methodological characteristics of assessment methods are the definition of the object of investigation, the type of statement and the assessment setting. The assessment setting is specified by three criteria: balance boundary, aggregation level and measuring units.All three assessment methods rely on the concept of efficiency, defined as a utility-effort-ratio. The object of investigation influences the utility, which is formalized by a measuring unit. The balance boundary for the utility determines to what extent the utility is considered. The balance boundary for the effort describes which resources are captured for which upstream and downstream processes. The aggregation level describes the extent to which different resources are aggregated as one measuring unit. Monetary, physical or self-designed units are commonly used as measuring units.The plurality of possible manifestations of the balance boundary, the aggregation level and the measuring unit does not allow for a universally valid, precise definition of the three investigated assessment methods. Therefore the recommendations are: Firstly, when using an assessment method, the criteria of the framework should be used to document the approach. Secondly, the identification of the adequate assessment method should be based on a thorough discussion of goals and hierarchy of goals in politics.     

Bewertung und Steuerung von Gasspeichern bzw. Gasspeicherscheiben

In this paper you find a brief introduction to the German gas market as well as a draft of the resulting storage requirements in Germany. In the following different storage usages are looked into from an economical perspective. Additionally the presented evaluating methods in this paper are specified. This paper then introduces stochastic optimization methods which give the possibility to assess the storage against the spot price as well as against to the whole forward curve. For this models to evaluate the market price are illustrated and calibrated on the basis of empirical data.After this a sample storage slice is rated with the Least-Square-Monte-Carlo method based on a stochastic multi factor spot price model. Then the hedging evaluation against the whole forward curve is presented. Concluding you find a comparison of the two methods.     

Kurzevaluation des Energie- und Klimapakets der EU-Kommission vom 23. Januar 2008

The main features of the European Commission’s “Climate Action and Renewable Energy Package” from January 23rd, 2008, have been implemented in the GINFORS model. In 2007 various alternative paths for achieving the EU’s climate targets were analysed on behalf of the German Federal Ministry of Economy and Technology (BMWi) using GINFORS. The results basically point in the same direction as those found by the model-based Impact Assessment put out by the European Commission. The macro-economic costs of the package are below 1 % of the EU’s annual GDP. In particular the new member states will be affected above average, which justifies redistribution mechanisms. The yearly growth rates though will remain almost unchanged until 2020. The disproportionately high reduction targets for the ETS sector cannot be reproduced by GINFORS. They cause higher macro-economic costs than necessary. Altogether this does not yet result in a coherent traceable overall picture of the EU package, especially in comparison to analyses of the German energy and climate change policy.