A new EU electricity market design for a decarbonised energy system

(EurActiv, 17 Jan 2023) The current electricity market model was designed in different times and has proved to be vulnerable to stress situations. An overhaul is now needed to facilitate the deployment of renewables, writes Teresa Ribera.

Teresa Ribera is Spain’s third Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Ecological Transition and Demographic Challenge. 

In February 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine. It triggered an unprecedented energy price crisis that has made apparent the importance of accelerating the energy transition and moving toward the decarbonisation of the economy and Europe’s strategic and energy autonomy.

It is a transition that requires us to delve into the socially and environmentally organised deployment of renewable energies. We need to achieve a responsible and secure energy model with more stable and competitive electricity generation costs.

At the same time, given the intermittency of renewable generation, we need to generate an environment that facilitates the storage and availability of manageable technologies to provide durability to the electricity system.

In most cases, they require significant initial investments but have practically zero variable operating costs, yet consumers do not benefit from this in the current model, which was designed in different times, and with generation systems that are far removed from the model that Europe is committed to today.

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EurActiv, 17 Jan 2023: A new EU electricity market design for a decarbonised energy system