Blog
RES support tenders – increasing competition or emergency brake?
Renewable energy sources (RES) have played a key role in European policies over the latest decades and will most probably continue to do so in future. To reach their targets for electricity consumed from RES, EU countries have applied a number of support schemes, which often have been revised (in many cases more than once) for one or another reason. As a professional, who has experienced the renewables tariff roller coaster in first person, any announcement of changes is already bad news. Auctions and/or tenders, increasingly gaining popularity within the EU as instruments to increase competition among different renewable technologies, are no exception. A person like me, who has developed a healthy pessimism against frequent subsidy changes caused by the evolution of the support schemes, may ask the following question: Is the urgency to curb the rapid RES development and the associated budget deficits the primary motivation behind the reforms or could it be the next logical step in the evolution of renewable energy support?
Navigating the EU State Aid rules, when implementing a capacity mechanism
More often than not understanding what to expect from an upcoming EU regulation can be a challenge. I have been through a good number of its energy trading regulations and still at times, I am left wondering, how implementing the next one will unfold. And yes, my expectations often prove wrong. Yet, I keep trying to understand and see the logic of it all. So, when I’ve read that the EU finally approved France’s new capacity support scheme after few changes ensuring its compliance with the EU State Aid regulation, I’ve decided that a quick overview may help us all understand, what are the key rules to be upheld.
Will UK power capacity market face shortage?
Can you imagine waking up in the morning and skipping the hot cup of coffee due to power shortage? Can you imagine skipping the hot shower due to power shortage? I can’t. But it could happen.
If you want to know what measures the British institutions have put in place to improve the current situation in the power sector, you should definitely read below.
End-Of-Day Made Simple: Mission Impossible?
Imagine you come to work around 7 am to prepare for the trading day. You expect a set of reports around exposures, PNL, MTM, etc to give you your starting positions and to help you make decisions what to trade today. They are missing. Someone in IT explains the End-of-Day has failed and it is re-run as we speak.
You take a sip of coffee and wonder whether to shout to someone. Then you go back to Excel and start to recover what happened yesterday to make sure you don’t trade based on wrong positions.
Sounds familiar?
