Future trends for biojet fuel and biosuccinic acid production in São Paulo state, Brazil: An agent-based modelling and simulation approach to explore institutional barriers and opportunities

Within the context of growing concerns about oil supply security and greenhouse gas emissions, both the aviation and petrochemical sector are exploring alternative feedstocks for the production of jet fuel and chemicals, respectively. In that light, research into bio-based jet fuels (biojet fuel) and bio-based chemicals has been accelerating in...

Potential effects of risk aversion on technology choices and security of supply: Researched with an agent-based model of a liberalised electricity market

Given the current vulnerability of the profitability of power plants to price volatilities and government policy changes, the role of risk considerations in power plant investment decisions becomes increasingly important. However, when we look at simulation studies that look into the long-term impact of different policy designs on electricity...

A layered approach to model interconnected infrastructure and its significance for asset management

Physical infrastructures facilitate much of societal and economic wellbeing of countries, regions and urban areas. In our increasingly urbanizing world, infrastructures in urban areas are densely located and interconnected. The effects of this interconnectedness are being studied increasingly, particularly in light of climate change effects. In...

Interactions between carbon and power markets in transition

In this research, several improvements to the European Union Emissions Trading System (EU ETS) were analysed. The EU ETS is a market for emission allowances and the European Union's main instrument for reducing greenhouse gas emissions (of which CO2 is the main component). However, the CO2 allowance price in this market has been highly volatile...

Adjusting the CO2 cap to subsidised RES generation: Can CO2 prices be decoupled from renewable policy?

The low prices in the European Emission Trading System (EU ETS) have triggered discussions of various possible reforms. One option is to decouple the CO 2 prices from renewable energy policy by adjusting the emission cap to renewable energy investment overshoots. We introduce two ways of reducing the CO 2 cap in response to overshoots of...

The market (in-)stability reserve for EU carbon emission trading: Why it might fail and how to improve it

The EU parliament has accepted a proposal of the EU commission on the backloading of EU emission allowances (EUA), where the auctioning of EUAs is postponed to future time periods. The EU commission has also proposed a market stability reserve (MSR), which is a quantity-based stabilisation policy that is aimed at controlling the volume of EUAs...

Cross-border electricity market effects due to price caps in an emission trading system: An agent-based approach

The recent low CO2 prices in the European Union Emission Trading Scheme (EU ETS) have triggered a discussion whether the EU ETS needs to be adjusted. We study the effects of CO2 price floors and a price ceiling on the dynamic investment pathway of two interlinked electricity markets (loosely based on Great Britain, which already has introduced a...