Suchergebnisse

Climate change mitigation targets push forward drastic changes in electricity systems and cause new challenges for electricity market actors. Smart grids are commonly seen to support the solving of these future challenges. This article focuses on the question, how smart grid and smart electricity system development have been integrated as targets to the Finnish electricity market legislation. Electricity distribution system operators (DSOs) are expected to carry the main burden in the smart grid development, so the focus will be in the regulation and legislation applied to them. However, smart grids only are not enough to create smart electricity system, but also smart markets are needed. As the encouraging elements in regulation for both smart grids and smart markets seem to be currently inadequate, a certificate system for smart grids will be suggested. ; Peer reviewed

Offshore wind power development is expected to play an important role in meeting the EU climate targets. To integrate offshore wind power, advanced offshore infrastructures such as meshed grids are suggested to optimise the grid development. Meshed offshore grids refer to integrated offshore infrastructure where offshore wind power hubs are interconnected to several countries as opposed to radial connection linking the wind farm to one single country and market. However, development of meshed architectures is hindered by the legal and regulatory barriers. Earlier research has identified the lack of cooperation and misalignments in national legal and regulatory frameworks as being the main risk factors in integrated offshore network investments. The purpose of this article is to investigate whether a supra-national TSO could facilitate regional cooperation and coordinated investments to develop meshed offshore grids. Several studies have discussed the case of North Seas, but the Baltic Sea region has had less attention despite the large offshore wind development potential. In this paper, a multi-disciplinary approach combining legal dogmatics and regulatory economics is used to identify the existing barriers and the possible solutions. The Baltic Sea countries are used as illustration. We suggest legal and regulatory recommendations that comply with the EU energy policy targets of sustainability, competition and reliability.

The reduction of environmental impacts of electricity use and the transition to renewable power generation crucially depend on demand response (DR). This article takes the political commitment to DR as a starting point and empirically examines Finnish stakeholders' views on barriers to the utilization of DR and the ways in which these barriers could be overcome. The analysis is based on surveys of Finnish electricity retailers and distribution system operators (DSOs), a survey of a wider range of energy specialists, and a follow-up workshop of the latter survey. According to the participants, the main barriers are related to customer engagement and DR automation. Thus, the proposed solutions focused largely on end-user incentives and obligations as well as technical issues. Especially the latter topic would benefit from regulative measures such as standardization of appliance interfaces, whereas changes in electricity tariff structures may take place either through normative changes by the retailers and DSOs or through regulation. ; Peer reviewed

The energy policy of the European Union (EU) aims to unify energy markets of the Member States and facilitate a safe and sustainable transition to renewable energy. The development of offshore wind energy (OWE) in the Baltic Sea Region (BSR), along with the construction of a meshed grid, can contribute significantly to renewable energy production and enhance interconnections between BSR countries. The BSR has great potential to become a major hub for wind energy production but faces significant barriers to integrating regional markets, including asynchronous power systems and energy isolation. The following report was developed within the scope of Baltic InteGrid (Integrated Baltic Offshore Wind Electricity Grid Development), an interdisciplinary Interreg research project bringing together experts from Member States present in the BSR to coordinate the implementation of these policy objectives. The goal of the Baltic InteGrid project is to track current regional, national, and European energy developments and propose recommendations to optimise regulatory frameworks. The report examines policy and regulatory frameworks relevant to the development of OWE and grid infrastructure in the BSR. It also identifies barriers to this development, which will be addressed in greater detail in future Baltic InteGrid research.