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Open Heat BE

The heat supply in the city of Berlin will have to be substantially reformed to reach the goal of climate neutrality by 2045 while it has to cope with high gas prices today. In the research project Open Heat BE, two open numerical models are combined to analyse the short term and long term challenges of heat supply in Berlin. At TU Berlin, the energy system model GENeSYS-MOD is used at municipal...

The Energy-Price Channel of (European) Monetary Policy

This study examines whether central banks can combat inflation that is caused by rising energy prices. By using a high-frequency event study and a Structural Vector Autoregression, we find evidence that the European Central Bank (ECB) and the Federal Reserve (Fed) are capable of doing so by affecting domestic and global energy prices. This “energy-price channel” of monetary policy plays an important ...

Stranded Nations? Transition Risks and Opportunities towards a Clean Economy

The transition away from a fossil-fuel powered economy towards a cleaner production system will create winners and losers in the global trade system. We compile a list of 'brown' traded products whose use is highly likely to decline if the world is to mitigate climate change, and explore which countries are most at risk of seeing their productive capabilities 'stranded'. Using methods from economic ...

And Yet They Move: Energy Prices Fall When Key Interest Rates Increase, Despite Countervailing Effects

Energy prices have risen sharply as a result of the coronavirus pandemic as well as the Russian attack on Ukraine in February 2022. The resulting consumer price inflation is forcing the European Central Bank (ECB) to act in accordance with its mandate. However, the ECB expresses doubts that it will be able to have an impact on the price increases. As this Weekly Report based on an analysis of structural ...

International Partnerships for a Just Energy Transition: Findings from South Africa

In 2021, the G7 and South Africa agreed upon the Just Energy Transition Partnership (JETP). This new instrument in international cooperation should support emerging and developing economies in a just energy transition and in phasing out coal. It is intended to facilitate equal partnerships between donors and recipients, thereby also facilitating the energy transition. An evaluation of the South African ...

How Communication Makes the Difference between a Cartel and Tacit Collusion: A Machine Learning Approach

This paper sheds new light on the role of communication for cartel formation. Using machine learning to evaluate free-form chat communication among firms in a laboratory experiment, we identify typical communication patterns for both explicit cartel formation and indirect attempts to collude tacitly. We document that firms are less likely to communicate explicitly about price fixing and more likely ...

Reducing Energy System Model Distortions from Unintended Storage Cycling through Variable Costs

Energy system models are used for policy decisions and technology designs. If not carefully used, models give implausible outputs and mislead decision-making. One implausible effect is “unintended storage cycling”, which is observable as simultaneous storage charging and discharging. Methods to remove such misleading effects exist, but are computationally inefficient and sometimes ineffective. Through ...

Substituting Clean for Dirty Energy: A Bottom-Up Analysis

We fit CES and VES production functions to data from a numerical bottom-up optimization model of electricity supply with clean and dirty inputs. This approach allows for studying high shares of clean energy not observable today and for isolating mechanisms that impact the elasticity of substitution between clean and dirty energy. Central results show that (i) dirty inputs are not essential for production. ...

A Collective Blueprint, Not a Crystal Ball: Overcoming Political Stalemates: The German Stakeholder Commission on Phasing out Coal

The future of coal remains contested in many countries, hindering necessary energy transitions. Collaborative governance approaches, such as stakeholder commissions, have been proposed as potential solution to resolve such societal conflicts. In Germany, a stakeholder commission process managed to overcome the existing stalemate situation, leading to the adoption of a coal phase-out by 2038. Celebrated ...