The Role of Merchant and Regulated Interconnectors in the European Power Market
The paper describes two regulatory regimes that are possible for the development of interconnectors in the European power market. Both the regulatory developments are explained as well as the practical experiences from the perspective of some DC submarine interconnectors in the North West European region The Dutch market is connected to the German and Belgium markets, and since 2008 to the Scandinavian through a 700 MW cable (NorNed). A 1000 MW interconnection with the British market (BritNed) is foreseen for 2010. Economically, these investment projects raise several questions. As the investment costs are high, while the benefits are often uncertain, the profitability is a key issue to be dealt with. The economical aspects are directly linked to the issue of the institutional organisation: should the responsibility for these investments be left to the public TSO (regulated interconnector) or should privately owned firms be given the option to be involved (merchant interconnector)? In 2007 the European Commission published its proposal for a new legislative package concerning the electricity and gas market. The European Parliament adopted the third package in April 2009 and it has to be rubber-stamped by EU governments before taking effect. The objective of the EC with the third package is to enforce the creation of a truly European single wholesale market. The most intensively debated element of the package is the proposed ownership unbundling between commercial activities from network operations. However the package also proposes some changes for merchant interconnectors that will be elaborated in the paper. Merchant interconnectors may have an added value that will likely be reduced by the new proposals of the European Commission. The package aims to tackle the market integration process, in which interconnections play a key role, by ownership unbundling and establishing stronger regulatory authorities. Regional cooperation is then facilitated by a European Regulatory Agency and a European Network of TSOs. This approach should foster regulated investments in transmission and therefore reduces the need for merchant lines, although the possibility of merchant investments is left open. The Dutch case provides some interesting practical experiences as the two interconnectors NorNed and BritNed fall under a different regime (regulated and merchant respectively). The BritNed DC transmission cable is developed by a joint venture of the two TSOs. Also the Nordic market provides interesting cases, as several interconnectors have been in operation before EU directives and regulations were adopted. The differences between the regulated and merchant regime might entail different behaviour of the TSOs. A merchant investor will try to maximise the congestion rents, which is different from the total socio-economic value. The paper will discuss the practical impact of the two regimes. The most fundamental argument in favour of allowing merchant investments is that a private investor has stronger incentives to produce efficiently. This incentive is normally less strong for (publicly owned) TSOs in case of regulated investments, although it depends on the regulatory approach. In the case of the NorNed-cable the Dutch regulator has included several incentives in its decision to allow for the investment. These attempts to increase incentives on TSOs (and to reduce the risk for consumers) will never be perfect. The practical impact of the incentives on the behaviour of TenneT TSO will also be discussed in the paper.
Interconnectors DC-cables EU Directive 3rd legislative package TPA TSO
Paul Giesbertz Siem Bruijns Dennis Klaar Jan van Putten Hakon Egeland
Statkraft Markets the Netherlands TenneT TSO the Netherlands Statkraft Norway
国际会议
桂林
英文
1-11
2009-10-28（万方平台首次上网日期，不代表论文的发表时间）