@article{PoestgesBucksteegRuhnauetal., author = {P{\"o}stges, Arne and Bucksteeg, Michael and Ruhnau, Oliver and B{\"o}ttger, Diana and Haller, Markus and K{\"u}nle, Eglantine and Ritter, David and Schmitz, Richard and Wiedmann, Michael}, title = {Phasing out coal - An impact analysis comparing five large-scale electricity market models}, publisher = {Applied Energy Vol. 319}, doi = {https://www.econstor.eu/handle/10419/234102}, abstract = {Climate target achievement has a crucial influence on the modelling and the decision processes in the energy sector. It induced the development of several policy instruments to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions, including administrative and market-based mechanisms for phasing out coal-fired generation technologies. In order to analyse such instruments, electricity market and energy system models are widely used. However, results and corresponding recommendations largely depend on the formulation of the respective model. This motivates a systematic comparison of five large-scale electricity market models which are applied to European scenarios considering the period until 2030. An evolved diff-in-diff approach is proposed to analyse the effects of two coal phase-out strategies. This contribution expands on that of earlier studies and provides some more general takeaways for both modellers and decision-makers. For instance, the evolved diff-in-diff analysis shows the influence of the reference scenario when evaluating a policy instrument. Furthermore, the importance of technical aspects such as constraints for combined heat and power plants are discussed and implications regarding three dimensions (economic, environmental, and security of supply) are presented.}, language = {en} } @article{RuhnauBucksteegRitteretal., author = {Ruhnau, Oliver and Bucksteeg, Michael and Ritter, David and Schmitz, Richard and B{\"o}ttger, Diana and Koch, Matthias and P{\"o}stges, Arne and Wiedmann, Michael and Hirth, Lion}, title = {Why electricity market models yield different results: Carbon pricing in a model-comparison experiment}, doi = {10.1016/j.rser.2021.111701}, abstract = {The European electricity industry, the dominant sector of the world's largest cap-and-trade scheme, is one of the most-studied examples of carbon pricing. In particular, numerical models are often used to study the uncertain future development of carbon prices and emissions. While parameter uncertainty is often addressed through sensitivity analyses, the potential uncertainty of the models themselves remains unclear from existing single-model studies. Here, we investigate such model-related uncertainty by running a structured model comparison experiment, in which we exposed five numerical power sector models to aligned input parameters—finding stark model differences. At a carbon price of 27 EUR/t in 2030, the models estimate that European power sector emissions will decrease by 36-57\% when compared to 2016. Most of this variation can be explained by the extent to which models consider the market-driven decommissioning of coal- and lignite-fired power plants. Higher carbon prices of 57 and 87 EUR/t yield a stronger decrease in carbon emissions, by 45-75\% and 52-80\%, respectively. The lower end of these ranges can be attributed to the short-term fuel switch captured by dispatch-only models. The higher reductions correspond to models that additionally consider market-based investment in renewables. By further studying cross-model variation in the remaining emissions at high carbon prices, we identify the representation of combined heat and power as another crucial driver of differences across model results.}, language = {en} }