TY - JOUR A1 - Ruhnau, Oliver A1 - Stiewe, Clemens A1 - Muessel, Jarusch A1 - Hirth, Lion T1 - Natural gas savings in Germany during the 2022 energy crisis JF - Nature Energy N2 - Russia curbed its natural gas supply to Europe in 2021 and 2022, creating a grave energy crisis. This paper empirically estimates the crisis response of natural gas consumers in Germany—for decades the largest export market for Russian gas. Using a multiple regression model, we estimate the response of small consumers, industry, and power stations separately, controlling for the non-linear temperature-heating relationship, seasonality, and trends. We find significant and substantial gas savings for all consumer groups, but with differences in timing and size. For instance, industry started reducing consumption as early as September 2021, while small consumers saved substantially only since March 2022. Across all sectors, gas consumption during the second half of 2022 was 23% below the temperature-adjusted baseline. We discuss the drivers behind these savings and draw conclusions on their role in coping with the crisis. Y1 - 2023 UR - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:b1570-opus4-49445 N1 - This is a post-peer-review, pre-copyedit version of an article published in Nature Energy. The final authenticated version is available online at: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41560-023-01260-5 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Schlecht, Ingmar A1 - Maurer, Christoph A1 - Hirth, Lion T1 - Financial contracts for differences: The problems with conventional CfDs in electricity markets and how forward contracts can help solve them JF - Energy Policy N2 - Contracts for differences are widely seen as a cornerstone of Europe's future electricity market design. This paper is about designing such contracts. We identify the dispatch and investment distortions that conventional CfDs cause, the patches used to overcome these shortcomings, and the problems these fixes introduce. We then propose an alternative contract we call “financial” CfD. This hybrid between conventional CfDs and forward contracts mitigates revenue risk to a substantial degree while providing undistorted incentives. Like conventional CfDs, it is long-term and tailored to technology-specific (wind, solar, nuclear) generation patterns but, like forwards, decouples payments from actual generation. The proposed contract mitigates volume risk and avoids margin calls by accepting physical assets as collateral. KW - Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law KW - General Energy Y1 - 2024 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2024.113981 VL - 186 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Hirth, Lion A1 - Khanna, Tarun M. A1 - Ruhnau, Oliver T1 - How aggregate electricity demand responds to hourly wholesale price fluctuations JF - Energy Economics N2 - Electricity needs to be consumed at the very moment of production, leading wholesale prices to fluctuate widely at (sub-)hourly time scales. This article investigates the response of aggregate electricity demand to such price variations. Using wind energy as an instrument, we estimate a significant and robust short-term price elasticity of about −0.05 in Germany and attribute this to industrial consumers. As the share of consumption that is exposed to real-time prices (currently less than 25%) expands, we expect the aggregated price elasticity to grow. Y1 - 2024 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eneco.2024.107652 SN - 0140-9883 VL - 135 PB - Elsevier BV ER -