Capacity Mechanisms in the EU Energy Market: Law, Policy, and Economics - Tapa dura

Ensuring an adequate, long-term energy supply is a paramount concern in Europe. EU member states now intervene by encouraging investment in generation capacity, offering an additional revenue stream for conventional power plants in addition to the existing, heavily subsidised investments in renewable energy sources.

These capacity remuneration mechanisms (or simply capacity mechanisms) have become a hot topic in the wider European regulatory debate. European electricity markets are increasingly interconnected, so the introduction of a capacity mechanism in one country not only distorts its national market but may have unforeseeable consequences for neighbouring electricity markets. If these mechanisms are adopted by several member states with no supra-national coordination and no consideration for their cross-border impact, they may cause serious market distortions and put the future of the European internal electricity market at risk.

This book provides readers with an in-depth analysis of capacity mechanisms, written by an expert team of policy-makers, economists, and legal professionals. It will be a first point of reference for regulators and policy-makers responsible for designing optimal capacity mechanisms in Europe, and will be an invaluable resource for academics and practitioners in the fields of energy, regulation, and competition.

Leigh Hancher is Professor of European Law at Tilburg University, and part-time Professor at the Florence School of Regulation. She is also Of Counsel at the Amsterdam office of Allen & Overy LLP. She is a well-known EU law expert and has counselled firms in a broad range of procedures. She is the author of numerous titles, including EU State Aids (4th ed, Sweet & Maxwell 2012) and EU Competition and Internal Market Law in the Healthcare Sector (with Wolf Sauter, OUP 2012). Dr Adrien de Hauteclocque is a Law Clerk (Référendaire) at the Court of Justice of the European Union and an Adviser of the Florence School of Regulation (European University Institute). He is also a visiting lecturer at École Nationale dAdministration (France). His research interests include EU antitrust and state aid law, competition policy in network industries and the law & economics of energy regulation. He is a regular speaker in international conferences and has published numerous academic articles and book chapters. He authored recently Market Building Through Antitrust: Long-term Contract Regulation in EU Electricity Markets (Edward Elgar 2014). Dr Malgorzata Sadowska is Research Fellow at the European University Institute, and Coordinator of the Energy Law & Policy Area at the Florence School of Regulation, Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies. She is the author of Committed to reform? Pragmatic antitrust enforcement in electricity markets (Intersentia 2014) and has published a number of papers on energy regulation and competition policy in top European law and economics journals.