New post-doc: Clément Leblanc

Clément Leblanc is a postdoctoral researcher at the Economics Department at Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. His research focuses on the design of electricity markets and related policy instruments in the context of power systems transitioning from dispatchable generation technologies to variable renewable generation technologies.

He has experience in applied theoretical modeling and numerical power system modeling. He received his PhD in Economics from the Ecole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées (ENPC, Paris) in June 2023, after having completed it at CIRED (International Research Center for the Environment and Development).

New pre-doc: Michael Duarte Gonçalves

Michael Duarte Gonçalves has joined EnergyEcolab from the Geneva School of Business Administration (HEG – Genève, in french), where he previously worked as a teaching and research assistant for two years.

Michael is now a pre-doc research assistant, working for Professor Fabra on projects related to energy and environmental economics. His areas of interest lie at the intersection of urban and environmental economics.

State-of-the-Art session at the EEA-ESEM Congress

On August 28, Natalia Fabra participated in the State-of-the Art session on “The Energy Crisis and the Energy Transition: Economic Analysis and Policy” at the EEA-ESEM Congress that took place in Barcelona. The session was shared with Steve Cicala (Tufts) and chaired by Mar Reguant (BSE).

Natalia’s talk was entitled “Decarbonizing power: challenges for expanding renewable energies”. The slides are available here.

EnergyEcoLab was also present at the conference at two contributed sessions:

Clément Leblanc presented his paper “Designing Subsidy Contracts for Renewables: An Incentive-Risk Trade-off” (slides available here)

Gerard Llobet presented his paper “Fossil Fuels and Renewable Energy. Mix or Match?,” with Natalia Fabra (paper available here)

Current Issues in Energy & Environmental Economics

On June 15, 2023, the School of Economics & Business of Universidad Navarra organized a one-day workshop, at Fundación Ramón Areces, on “Current Issues in Energy & Environmental Economics”.

Natalia Fabra presented her paper “Do Renewables Create Local Jobs?” (joint with A. Lacuesta, E. Gutierrez, and R. Ramos). The other invited talks were given by David Rapson (UC Davis & Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas)  on “Global Transportation Decarbonization”, Jing Li (MIT) on “Entry and Coordination in the U.S. Electric Vehicle Charging Industry” and Raúl Bajo-Buenestado (U Navarra) on “Market Competition and the Adoption of Clean Technology”.

Check the video of the event here.

EnergyEcoLab joins OS-Climate

EnergyEcoLab has become an associate member of the OS-Climate Community, a collaborative network focused on climate-related research initiatives.

OS-Climate is a Linux foundation project actively engaged in advancing climate risk assessment, developing innovative methodologies, and fostering knowledge exchange among its members.

More info can be found at: https://os-climate.org/

MIBEL Prize for “Market Power and Price Exposure: Learning from Changes in Renewable Energy Regulation”

The paper “Market Power and Price Exposure: Learning from Changes in Renewable Energy Regulation” (Natalia Fabra and Imelda, American Economic Journal: Economic Policy. Forthcoming) has been the winner of the 2nd Edition of MIBEL Prize.

This prize awards the best academic research on the Iberian Electricity Market and the energy transition.
The ceremony will take place on June 6, 2023, at the Comisión Nacional de los Mercados y la Competencia (CNMC).

Read the paper here.

Press release (in spanish) here.

Acceptance speech (in spanish) here.

BECCLE Conference

Natalia Fabra has given a keynote lecture entitled “Reforming European Electricity Markets” at the BECCLE Conference on competition policy, organized by the Bergen Center for Competition Law and Economics (BECCLE). The conference combines sessions with invited speakers and contributed sessions with presentations and discussions of original research papers in the fields of competition law and competition economics.

The conference programme is available here.

The slides of Natalia’s presentation are available here.

Professional Course on The Energy Transition: Economics and Policy

Energy prices have broken all-time record highs during 2022. This, together with the need to strengthen decarbonization efforts, makes the analysis of energy and climate policies more relevant and exciting than ever. There is consensus regarding the need to reduce carbon emissions, promote renewables, and improve energy efficiency, but security of supply concerns have also come to the forefront of the policy debate.

The BSE Intensive Course on The Energy Crisis and the Energy Transition: Economics and Policy provides you (whether you are an economist, engineer, or lawyer, working in the private or public sector) with a thorough understanding of the most recent developments and economic insights to analyze the performance of current and potential energy and climate policies.

The course, which takes place at the Barcelona GSE on May 11-12 2023, provides an informed overview of the energy crisis (its causes and effects), the policy reforms that have been put in place (e.g., the Iberian exception to reduce electricity prices and the EU Hydrogen and Decarbonised Gas Market Package, among others) or those that are currently being discussed (e.g., the European Commission’s proposal on the electricity market reform).

Time also is devoted to discussing some of the challenges likely to arise during the energy transition, such as those related to industrial competitiveness and the need to finance low-carbon investments.

The program’s faculty includes leading international scholars and practitioners with extensive experience of the application of economic techniques to designing and assessing the performance of energy and climate policies. The Directors of the course are Massimo Motta (BGSE) and Natalia Fabra, head of EnergyEcoLab. Instructors are Natalia Fabra, Albert Banal-Estañol, Mar Reguant, and Lluís Saurí.

Green transition: create an European energy agency

A group of energy and climate economists have proposed that a European energy agency be set up to guide the continent’s transition to net-zero carbon by 2050. EneregyEcoLab supports this initiative, which has been signed by Simone Tagliapietra, Georg Zachmann, Anna Creti, Ottmar Edenhofer, Natalia Fabra, Jean-Michel Glachant, Pedro Linares, Andreas Löschel, Joanna Maćkowiak-Pandera, and László Szabó.

The text of the proposal has been published as a correspondence piece in Nature.

Green transition: create a European energy agency

As energy and climate economists, we propose that a European energy agency be set up to inform and guide the continent’s transition to net-zero carbon by 2050. Because the energy transition will affect so many operations and interests, an independent public agency is needed to take responsibility for what information should be collected and how it is processed and presented. Stakeholders should be able to suggest improvements to help the agency to steer public planning and private investment. This agency would impartially address questions that are key to formulating energy policy to achieve the transition. Examples include how much industry pays for electricity, the rate at which wind and solar energy are taking over, and which transmission lines are the most congested. The answers are currently unclear, and confused by difficulties in accessing some public statistics and by the fact that updated data are available only commercially. Such a European energy agency could mirror the European Environment Agency and its mandate to deliver knowledge and data to support Europe’s environmental and climate goals. Alternatively, the task could be undertaken by a dedicated branch of the European Union’s statistical office, Eurostat.

A longer version has been published here.

Public Hearing on the Reform of the EU´s electricity market design

The ITRE Committee organises on April 24 a public hearing on the reform of the Electricity Market Design that was proposed by the Commission on 14 March. The proposals aim to accelerate renewable generation and the phase-out of fossil gas, make consumer bills less dependent on volatile fossil fuel prices, better protect consumers from future price spikes and potential market manipulation, and make the EU’s industry clean and more competitive.

The participating experts are:

  • Konrad Purchała, Managing Director for System Management in PSE
  • Natalia Fabra, Professor of Economics at Universidad Carlos III de Madrid
  • Georg Zachmann, Senior Fellow at BruegelProf. Jorge Vasconcelos, Chairman of NEWES
  • Jaume Loffredo, Senior Energy Policy Officer & Energy Team Leader of BEUC
Members will have an opportunity to exchange views and raise questions with affected stakeholders and experts in the field.
More information here.