Date/Time
Date(s) - 08/10/2014
6:00 pm - 7:00 pm
Location
William J Clinton Auditorium, UCD
System effects challenging the European energy market
After carefully defining the different aspects of energy security of supply, it is investigated why the European electricity market is facing major difficulties. Provocatively speaking, by disregarding system effects (likely because of mere ignorance), well-meant policy goals (and their translation into actual measures), are “destroying” a smooth functioning of the common market. The three targets set by the European Commission (20-20-20 by 2020) are backfiring and lead to “strange” effects: renewable subsidies are co-responsible for a low CO2 price in the EU ETS system – renewables subsidies are de-facto subsidizing the use of coal for electric power generation. A too fast build-up of intermittent renewables combined with marginal-cost pricing drives down the wholesale electricity prices to the point that the most efficient generation plants (CCGT) are put idle and risk of being shut down, unless capacity remuneration is introduced. At the same time, end-user prices are going up (in some countries) quite substantially to cover the costs of support schemes. Together with the extremely slow build-up of new transmission lines, difficulty of electricity storage, the geopolitical tensions in Ukraine, the still lingering economic and financial crisis, all this cumulates into an extremely challenging situation that can only be understood by systems thinking. After understanding what goes on, new opportunities may emerge and robust solutions may be found.
William D. D’haeseleer is Full Professor at the University of Leuven (KU Leuven), Belgium, where he teaches courses in the domain of Energy Systems & Energy Management. He is Director of the University of Leuven Energy Institute. He holds engineering degrees (MS level) in Electromechanical Engineering (Energy) from the KU Leuven and the University of Wisconsin-Madison where he also obtained his PhD. He is the Chair of the Belgian Committee of the World Energy Council and is elected member of the Royal Academy of the Sciences and the Arts of Belgium.
Context:
On the afternoon of Wednesday October 8th, PhD students from the Electricity Research Centre are hosting a workshop on Energy Systems Integration (ESI). The workshop will run for 2 hours from 3.45pm to 5.45pm, based in the William Jefferson Clinton Auditorium, located beside UCD Engineering, more details here. Directly following the workshop, at 6pm, an open seminar is being presented by Prof William D’haeseleer from KU Leuven on “System effects challenging the European energy market”. The timing is such that both events can be attended with time for some refreshments between them. These events are being held in conjunction with the annual ERC SEES Research symposium which takes place the following day, more details here.