Energy Markets and Energy Policy

The long-term transformation of the German power industry into a system that is predominantly based on renewable energies poses major challenges for society, politics and science. Numerous decisions and developments exert influence on the prospective structure of the European and German power supply: The emissions trading and the increased feed-in from fluctuating renewable energies lead to changes in generation schedule as well as technical and economic circumstances for investments in generating plants and grids. Cross-border energy flows are affected by these fundamental changes as well as prices. Against this background the research group Energy Markets and Energy Policy systematically and model-based investigates the interdependencies and possible future trends in energy markets. A particular focus is the European electricity market and the effect of renewable energies.

Examples for the regarded questions are:

  •   Construction of stochastic optimization models to analyse the integration of fluctuating feed-in from renewable energies in the electricity market and the effects on the electricity grid

  •   Analyses to grid shortage management and modeling of alternative methods for grid shortage management like zonal pricing

  •   Analyses to further development of the operating reserve markets

  •   Analysis of effects from capacity mechanisms

  •   Construction of a model frame for analysis of interdependencies of political instruments and unexpected developments

  •   Estimation of investment decisions in grids under uncertainties

  •   Micro- and macroeconomic estimation of costs and benefits of renewable energies under consideration of technical restrictions

  •   Analysis of interdependencies between electricity and gas market under consideration of strategic behavior

Projects, which were/are primary edited by the research group are:

MODEX-POLINS, KoNeMaSim, INDUNAFOM, DESIRE, NAREM, EWIS, SUPWIND and further projects in cooperation with companies in the power industry

Head of the research group Energy Markets and Energy Policy is Dr. Michael Bucksteeg who is also available as contact persons for questions of corresponding research and practice.