ALBERT

Description / Table of Contents: Electricity market reform has fundamentally changed the environment for maintaining reliable and secure power supplies. Growing inter-regional trade has placed new demands on transmission systems, creating a more integrated and dynamic network environment with new real-time challenges for reliable and secure transmission system operation. These operational challenges are intensified as spare transmission capacity is absorbed. The major blackouts of 2003 raised fundamental questions about the appropriateness of the rules, regulations and system operating practices governing transmission system security. Despite the considerable efforts since 2003 to address the weaknesses exposed by the blackouts, it can still be argued that the development of these rules and operating practices have not kept pace with the fundamental changes resulting from electricity market reform. More can and should be done. Management of system security needs to keep improving to maintain reliable electricity services in this more dynamic operating environment. The challenges raise fundamental issues for policymakers. This publication presents case studies drawn from recent large-scale blackouts in Europe, North America, and Australia. It concludes that a comprehensive, integrated policy response is required to avoid preventable large-scale blackouts in the future. The legal and regulatory arrangements governing transmission system security can be enhanced. In particular, scope exists to clarify responsibilities and accountabilities and to improve enforcement. System operating practices need to give greater emphasis to system-wide preparation to support flexible, integrated real-time system management. Real-time coordination, communication and information exchange, particularly within integrated transmission systems spanning multiple control areas, can and must be improved. Effective real-time system operation requires accurate and timely information and state-of-the-art technology to facilitate effective contingency planning, system management and coordinated emergency responses. New and existing technology could be more fully employed to enhance effective system operation. Appropriate training is also required to enhance emergency responses. More effective asset and vegetation management can also make a valuable contribution to strengthen transmission system security. An effective policy response should also consider how best to employ marketbased approaches to complement regulatory arrangements to strengthen transmission system security at least cost. Governments should provide the leadership and drive needed to establish effective, coordinated processes that address the key policy issues in an integrated and comprehensive manner. At the same time, all stakeholders need to work together to address these challenges if we are to avoid unduly exposing transmission systems to the risk of further substantial power failures.

Description / Table of Contents: Climate policy raises a number of challenges for the energy sector, the most significant being the transition from a high to a low-CO2 energy path in a few decades. Emissions trading has become the instrument of choice to help manage the cost of this transition, whether used at international or at domestic level. Act Locally, Trade Globally, offers an overview of existing trading systems, their mechanisms, and looks into the future of the instrument for limiting greenhouse gas emissions.

Description / Table of Contents: In ever more globalised and automated economies the role of electricity is increasingly important as a driver for economic prosperity. Reliable and affordable supply of electricity is essential for the competitiveness of global industrial product markets and a necessary ingredient in the daily workings of modern societies. At the same time, environmental impacts of energy usage are one of the most difficult global policy challenges. Reliable access to affordable electricity supply with acceptable environmental impacts is only achieved with comprehensive and carefully balanced policy actions to establish the necessary incentive-based framework. To that end, liberalisation of electricity markets is a development path and policy option that has been implemented or considered in all IEA member countries. Through competition in liberalised markets incentives are created to drive for more efficient operation of electricity systems and more efficient investment decisions in terms of timing, sizing, siting and choice of technology. Even if liberalised markets leave critical policy challenges un-resolved, the transparency created by competition tends to improve the framework for targeted policy actions to address issues such as environmental quality and reliability. After up to ten years’ experience with liberalised electricity markets and even longer in some cases important lessons can now be drawn from some pioneering countries and regions. Theoretical principles for successful liberalisation can now be augmented with more qualified policy prescriptions based on real-world experience. Even if some pioneering markets have operated with considerable success for a number of years, liberalisation has shown it self not to be a single event, but rather a long process that requires on-going government commitment. No markets are perfect, and they will continue to evolve and develop to match the needs of electricity systems - systems that are at the same time undergoing considerable change. This book addresses the main principles of successful liberalisation with actual experiences and outcomes, hopefully providing decision makers within government and industry with policy prescriptions on the key issues. One point of departure is to ask whether liberalisation of electricity markets is feasible – that it, has it been possible to develop a functional market without jeopardizing reliability and other public policy priorities. Secondly, if liberalisation has worked in that it has been able to achieve this balance, has it delivered the expected outcome in terms of real economic benefit. An affirmative answer to these questions leads to the books’ focus on what issues are critical and what approaches best lead to successful electricity markets, allowing the book to point to best practices.

Description / Table of Contents: Detailed, complete, timely and reliable statistics are essential to monitor the energy situation at a country level as well as at an international level. Energy statistics on supply, trade, stocks, transformation and demand are indeed the basis for any sound energy policy decision. For instance, the market of oil – which is the largest traded commodity worldwide – needs to be closely monitored in order for all market players to know at any time what is produced, traded, stocked and consumed and by whom. In view of the role and importance of energy in world development, one would expect that basic energy information to be readily available and reliable. This is not always the case and one can even observe a decline in the quality, coverage and timeliness of energy statistics over the last few years.

Description / Table of Contents: The Russian government has embarked on a highly ambitious program of electricity reform. Russian policymakers have recognised that attracting timely and appropriate investment will remain a substantial and ongoing challenge, which can most effectively be addressed through the creation of efficient electricity markets operating in response to genuine price signals, within a robust and predictable legal and regulatory framework. Only such markets, in which competition is based on transparent prices that accurately reflect costs, can deliver the efficient, reliable and internationally competitive performance needed to meet the government’s economic targets in the longer term. Such markets can attract the new investment that the industry will need, especially in order to ensure security of electricity supply beyond 2010.