Documents Lehmann, Paul 3 results

"When it comes to energy policy, EU countries go their own way with little regard for other member states. What strategies exist in the EU Commission to coordinate and integrate energy markets? Are these strategies consistent with national plans currently in action? Is it too late to establish a unified energy policy? What can be achieved in a unified energy policy given the considerable differences in resource endowment and political preferences in energy strategies? Can the effectiveness of EU energy policy objectives be enhanced through policy coordination at the regional scale? This Forum seeks to provide answers to these questions."

"The European Council has proposed to stick to a more ambitious GHG target but to scrap a binding RES target for the post-2020 period. This is in line with many existing assessments which demonstrate that additional RES policies impair the cost-effectiveness of addressing a single CO2 externality, and should therefore be abolished. Our analysis explores to what extent this reasoning holds in a secondbest setting with multiple externalities related to fossil and nuclear power generation and policy constraints. In this context, an additional RES policy may help to address externalities for which firstbest policy responses are not available. We use a fully integrated combination of two separate models the top-down, global macro-economic model E3MG and the bottom-up, global electricity sector model FTT:Power - to test this hypothesis. Our quantitative analysis confirms that pursuing an ambitious RES target may mitigate nuclear risks and at least partly also negative non-carbon externalities associated with the production, import and use of fossil fuels. In addition, we demonstrate that an additional RES target does not necessarily impair GDP and other macro-economic measures if rigid assumptions of purely rational behaviour of market participants and perfect market clearing are relaxed. Overall, our analysis thus demonstrates that RES policies implemented in addition to GHG policies are not per se welfare decreasing. There are plausible settings in which an additional RES policy may outperform a single GHG/ETS strategy. Due to the fact, however, that i) policies may have a multiplicity of impacts, ii) the size of these impacts is subject to uncertainties and iii) their valuation is contingent on individual preferences, an unambiguous, "objective" economic assessment is impossible. Thus, the eventual decision on the optimal choice and design of climate and energy policies can only be taken politically."

"Political flexibility brings about trade-offs for policy-makers aiming to support the deployment of renewable energy sources (RES). On the one hand, it allows incorporating new information on ex ante uncertain benefits and costs of RES policy. On the other hand, it may deter RES investments. This paper scrutinizes how these trade-offs play out economically and politically when RES policy-makers choose the degree of flexibility as well as the instruments to implement flexibility. The analysis builds on a theoretical framework distinguishing between flexibility by design and by adjustment. It is complemented by a discussion of three case studies: RES support schemes in Germany and the United Kingdom, and the EU Emissions Trading Scheme. Theoretical as well as empirical results suggest that the politically chosen degree of flexibility by policy design may be sub-optimally low. In contrast, flexibility by policy adjustment is often excessively high."