This report analyses the influence of the Cap and Trade (CaT) system and the electricity market in California along two main questions: How do CaT design features affect the environmental effectiveness of the system and the quality of the carbon price signal? How do electricity market design features affect the carbon price induced abatement in the power sector? Based on publicly availabledata and expert interviews, we derive four main findings on the impact of the electricity market structure on the quality of the California Carbon Allowances (CCA) price.First, the capacity mix impacts the role of the CCA price for the electricity sector. Due to the large share of gas capacities and the very small share of coal plants, carbon reduction in the electricity sector can only be achieved by decreasing output or investing in carbon-free technologies. Second, complementary policies affect the marginal abatement cost (MAC) in the electricity sector and indirectly also the carbon price. Thus, the CCA price only reflects the MAC conditional on all the complementary policies. Third, the redistribution of large shares of the carbon revenue to consumers, as so-called California Climate Credits, increases the political acceptance of the system. Finally, the CaT system should currently not be seen as the major climate policy instrument in the Californian electricity sector. The broad mix of other policies buffer the carbon price and make the total costs for the transformation less transparent. Yet, this might change in the future when reduction targets become more stringent.This case study is part of the project “Influence of market structures and market regulation on the carbon market” that aims to investigate the interdependencies between carbon and energy markets in Europe, California, China, South Korea, and Mexico.

This paper exploits the exogeneity of weather conditions to evaluate renewable energy (RE) subsidy programs in Germany and Spain in terms of their costs for reducing carbon dioxide emissions. We find that both the aggregate costs and the distribution of costs between energy producers and consumers vary significantly depending on which type of RE technology is promoted| - reflecting substantial heterogeneity in production costs, temporal availability of natural resources, and market conditions (i.e., time-varying demand, carbon intensity of installed production capacities, and opportunities for cross-border trade). We estimate that the costs for reducing one ton of CO2 emissions through subsidies for solar are e411-1'944. Subsidizing wind entails significantly lower costs, ranging from e82-276. While the economic rents for energy producers always decrease, consumers incur four to seven times larger costs when solar is promoted but gain under RE policies promoting wind.

Natural gas plays an important role in many European energy systems especially with regard to the envisioned transition towards a less carbon intensive energy supply. Being dependent on imports - especially from Russia - this raises questions about the future development and security of Europe's gas supply. Using a numerical network model of the European gas system we assess 1) the potential impact of infrastructure extensions for Europe's gas supply and 2) the role of supply security policies in coping with a disruption of Russian imports via the Ukraine. Our results indicate that overall the European gas infrastructure is sufficient for average market conditions. Due to the strong dependency on Russian imports, however, disruptions during the winter months could lead to load curtailment. Projected network extension (Southern Gas Corridor, Nord Stream 2, and new LNG terminals) or a strategic storage policy coordinated across Europe has the potential to reduce this shortage. The positive impact of an extended network, however, also depends on the capability of the global gas market to provide flexible gas that can be reallocated towards Europe. The majority of demand curtailment can already by countered by a relatively modest amount of strategic storage (20% to 30%) if their use during crisis situations is coordination across European countries.

This report analyses the interaction of the European Emissions Trading System (EU ETS)and the German and Polish electricity markets along two main questions: How do EU ETS design features affect the environmental effectiveness of the system and the quality of the carbon price signal? How do electricity market design features in Poland and Germany affect the carbon price induced abatement in the power sector? Based on publicly available data and expert interviews, we derive three main findings on the impact of the electricity market structure on the quality of the EUA price.First, the diversity and age of the capacity portfolio determine the response of the electricity system to the EUA price. In systems with relatively young gas-fired plants, observing a fuel-switching is likely before major investment taking place. Second, complementary policies such as renewable or combined heat and power support and retail price policies (as the price cap for power in Poland) reduce the role of the carbon price. The former for dispatching and investment decisions and the latter for demand reduction and energy efficiency investments. Third, complementary policies also reduce the predictability of the carbon price as they affect investments and demand for emission allowances. The market stability reserve (MSR) -an automatic adjustment mechanism within the EU ETS -can reduce the impact of these effects on the allowance price to some extent, but does not remove all uncertainties.This case study is part of the project “Influence of market structures and market regulation on the carbon market” that aims to identify the impact of market structures and regulations on carbon markets and to investigate the interdependencies between carbon and energy markets in Europe, California, China, South Korea, and Mexico.

The NRP70 project "The Future of Swiss Hydropower: An Integrated Economic Assessment of Chances, Threats and Solutions" (HP Future) has been initiated in 2014 with the objective to identify options for Swiss hydropower (HP) to adopt to the ongoing and expected electricity system changes. The project has been finalized in 2018 and this final report provides an overview of the obtained results and insights. Following a short summary of the main findings is provided.

This paper provides an empirical assessment of the impact of rising gas and carbon prices on European electricity prices. Using a comprehensive data set of hourly power market data of 14 European countries, we estimate the impact of gas and carbon prices on electricity prices for the years 2018 to 2021. Depending on the country, we find that a gas price increase of 1€/MWh leads to an electricity price increase of 0.2-1.4€/MWh. Correspondingly, a carbon price increase of 1€/tCO2 leads to an electricity price increase of 0.5-1.0€/MWh. The magnitude of these impacts depends on a power market's production portfolio: Countries with a high gas share are more heavily affected by increasing gas prices; whereas the carbon price impact is higher for countries with a high coal share. Finally, we find that the rising gas price was mostly responsible for the electricity price increase in 2021. We show that the gas price lead to an average increase in electricity prices of 110€/MWh; whereas the increase attributed to the carbon price only amounted to an average of 20€/MWh. Thus, our analysis contributes to the current policy debate on reasons and distributional consequences of rising energy and carbon prices across Europe.