Future Energy Market Design

This workshop will be discussing the challenges facing the electricity industry as it decarbonises, and how electricity markets can be reformed to overcome them.

1.    Selling Energy

In contrast to fossil-fuelled power stations, many low-carbon generators have very low variable costs, and some have weather-dependent, variable, outputs. How should we set the price(s) at which those outputs are sold, balancing the needs to reflect costs and to finance the necessary investment?

2.    Delivering Electricity

Changing geographical patterns of generation may overload transmission lines, balancing supply and demand becomes harder when both are volatile, and a system with little inertia is much harder to control. What combination of markets, contracts and other mechanisms could system operators use to ensure that the output generators make available actually reaches electricity consumers?

3.    Selling Electricity

Whereas a large majority of Norwegian households have spot price based contracts most electricity customers in other countries face tariff structures that haven’t changed for decades. The industry’s cost structure is changing dramatically, and consumers have more ability to adjust demand in response to signals. Should the way in which end-users pay for electricity change, and what contractual arrangements would best link wholesale and retail markets?

Confirmed speakers in addition to input from the organizers are (in alphabetical order):

• Catherine Banet (Uni Oslo)
• Christine Brandstätt (Copenhagen Business School) 
• Jørgen Bjørndalen (DNV)
• Gerard Doorman (Statnett)
• Mathieu Fransen (ACER)    
• Michael Grubb (virtual, University College London)
• Friedrich Kunz (TenneT)
• Mark O’Malley (Imperial)
• Ramteen Sioshansi (Carnegie Mellon)