Energy and climate policies are usually seen as measures to internalize externalities. However, as a side effect, these policies redistribute wealth between consumers and producers, and within these groups. While redistribution is seldom the focus of the academic literature in energy economics, it plays a central role in real world policy debates. This paper compares the redistribution effects of two major electricity policies: support schemes for renewable energy sources, and CO2 pricing. We find that the redistribution effects of both policies are large, and they work in opposed directions: while renewables support transfers wealth from producers to consumers, carbon pricing does the opposite. More specifically, we show that moderate amounts of wind subsidies leave consumers better off even if they bear the costs of subsidies. In the case of CO2 pricing, we find that while suppliers as a whole benefit even without free allocation of emission certificates, large amounts of producer surplus are redistributed between different types of producers. These findings are derived from an analytical model of electricity markets, and a calibrated numerical model of the Northwestern European integrated power system. Our findings imply that a society with a preference for avoiding large redistribution might prefer a mix of policies, even if CO2 pricing alone is the first best climate policy in terms of allocative efficiency.

Ambitious policy targets together with current and projected high growth rates indicate that future power systems will likely show substantially increased generation from renewable energy sources. A large share will come from the variable renewable energy (VRE) sources wind and solar photovoltaics (PV); however, integrating wind and solar causes challenges for existing power systems. In this paper we analyze three major integration challenges related to the structural matching of demand with the supply of wind and solar power: low capacity credit, reduced utilization of dispatchable plants, and over-produced generation. Based on residual load duration curves we define corresponding challenge variables and estimate their dependence on region (US Indiana and Germany), penetration and mix of wind and solar generation. Results show that the impacts of increasing wind and solar shares can become substantial, and increase with penetration, independently of mix and region. Solar PV at low penetrations is much easier to integrate in many areas of the US than in Germany; however, some impacts (e.g. over-production) increase significantly with higher shares. For wind power, the impacts increase rather moderately and are fairly similar in US Indiana and Germany. These results point to the need for a systems perspective in the planning of VRE, a further exploration of alternative VRE integration options, such as storage and demand side management, and the explicit consideration of integration costs in the economic evaluation of VRE.

Levelized costs of electricity (LCOE) are a common metric for comparing power generating technologies. However, there is qualified criticism particularly towards evaluating variable renewables like wind and solar power based on LCOE because it ignores integration costs that occur at the system level. In this paper we propose a new measure System LCOE as the sum of generation and integration costs per unit of VRE. For this purpose we develop a conclusive definition of integration costs. Furthermore we decompose integration costs into different cost components and draw conclusions for integration options like transmission grids and energy storage. System LCOE are quantified from a power system model and a literature review. We find that at moderate wind shares (~20%) integration costs can be in the same range as generation costs of wind power and conventional plants. Integration costs further increase with growing wind shares. We conclude that integration costs can become an economic barrier to deploying VRE at high shares. This implies that an economic evaluation of VRE must not neglect integration costs. A pure LCOE comparison would significantly underestimate the costs of VRE at high shares. System LCOE give a framework of how to consistently account for integration costs and thus guide policy makers and system planers in designing a cost-efficient power system.

The integration of wind and solar generators into power systems causes “integration costs” for grids, balancing services, reserve capacity, more flexible operation of thermal plants, and reduced utilization of the capital stock embodied in infrastructure. This paper proposes a valuation framework to analyze and quantify these integration costs. We propose a new definition of integration costs based on the marginal economic value of electricity that allows a welfare-economic interpretation. Furthermore, based on the principal characteristics of wind and solar power, temporal variability, uncertainty, and location-specificity, we suggest a decomposition of integration costs that exhaustively and consistently accounts for all costs that occur at the level of the power system. Finally, we review 100 published studies to extract estimates of integration costs and its components. At high penetration rates, say a wind market share of 30-40%, integration costs are found to be 25-35 €/MWh, however, these estimates are subject to high uncertainty. The largest single cost component is the reduced utilization of capital embodied in thermal plant, which most previous studies have not accounted for. - We propose a new definition of integration costs of wind and solar power. - Our definition is based on the marginal economic value of electricity. - We suggest a consistent, operationable, robust & comprehensive cost decomposition. - Integration costs are large: 25-35 €/MWh at 30-40% wind, according to a lit review. - A major driver is the reduced utilization of capital embodied in thermal plants.