Abschlussbericht

Im Projekt REMARK wurde eine Simulations-Toolbox entwickelt, um verschiedene marktbasierte Ansätze zur Beschaffung von Blindleistung zu analysieren. Hintergrund ist die zukünftige Notwendigkeit, Blindleistung nicht mehr vorrangig aus fossilen Kraftwerken zu beziehen, sondern marktbasiert aus dezentralen, erneuerbaren Quellen – im Einklang mit den Vorgaben der EU. Da es bislang kaum praktische Erfahrungen mit Blindleistungsmärkten gibt, ermöglicht die Toolbox eine detaillierte Untersuchung möglicher Marktdesigns unter realistischen Bedingungen. Dazu kombiniert sie agentenbasierte Modelle mit Netzsimulationen und bildet mittels Co-Simulation das Zusammenspiel von Strommarkt, Blindleistungsmarkt und Netzbetrieb ab. Erste Analysen im Projekt zeigen, dass eine gleichzeitige Markträumung mit einheitlicher Preisbildung zu den geringsten Gesamtkosten führen, während diskriminierende Preisverfahren und sequentielle Märkte weniger effizient sind und häufiger Investitionen des Netzbetreibers erfordern. Außerdem wurde deutlich, dass das gleichzeitige Verhalten vieler dezentraler Akteure lokale Netzengpässe verstärken kann. Die im Projekt entwickelte REMARK-Toolbox bietet somit eine fundierte Entscheidungsgrundlage für die Ausgestaltung zukünftiger Blindleistungsmärkte.In the REMARK project, a simulation toolbox was developed to analyse various market-based approaches to the procurement of reactive power. The background to this is the future need to no longer procure reactive power primarily from fossil-fuelled power plants, but from decentralised, renewable sources and in a market-based way - in line with EU requirements. As there is hardly any practical experience with reactive power markets to date, the toolbox enables a detailed analysis of possible market designs under realistic conditions. To this end, it combines agent-based models with grid simulations and uses co-simulation to map the interaction between the electricity market, reactive power market and grid operation. Initial analyses in the project show that simultaneous market clearing with uniform pricing leads to the lowest total costs, while discriminatory pricing procedures and sequential markets are less efficient and require more frequent investments by the grid operator. It also became clear that the simultaneous behaviour of many decentralised players can exacerbate local grid bottlenecks. The REMARK toolbox developed in the project thus provides a sound basis for decision-making on the design of future reactive power markets

Rethinking Visiting Friends and Relatives Mobilities

The increasing number of people leading more mobile lives, with spatially dispersed families, raises questions over how they maintain their family life and friendships, and how this is shaped and shapes different forms of migration, and different patterns of Visiting Friends and Relatives (VFR). This paper develops an explanatory framework for conceptualizing and analyzing VFR mobilities, seeking to draw together threads from migration, mobilities and tourism studies. In unpacking the notion of VFR, this paper understands VFR mobilities as being constituted of diverse practices, and discusses five of the most important of these: social relationships, the provision of care, affirmations of identities and roots, maintenance of territorial rights, and leisure tourism. While these five types of practices are considered sequentially in this paper, they are in practice often blurred and overlapping. The interweaving of these practices changes over time, as does the meaning and content of individual practices, reflecting changes in the duration of migration, life cycle stage, individual goals and values, and the broader sets of relationships with and social obligations to different kin and friends

Coordination of power network operators as a game-theoretical problem

We analyse incentive problems in coordination of network operators that purchase services for electricity networks from distributed resources. Such services are often associated with externalities that make the social optimum costly against the individual one. However, a costly reaction of other operators occurs when the social optimum is missed. Regular network situations result in game-theoretical problems like prisoner's dilemma or chicken that are played in a random order in an infinitely repeated game. The outcome of this complex gametheoretical setting, i.e. adopted strategies, is difficult to predict. Adjustments to network regulation aiming to internalize external effects are discussed as a remedy

Making market-based redispatch efficient: How to alter distribution effects without distorting the generation dispatch?

Market-based redispatch is efficient in short-run but provides perverse long-run incentives. This paper explains such incentives by distribution effects of the tool. Therefore, market-based redispatch is conceptualized as a Coasean bargaining about network capacity. This allows altering distribution effects without impeding the short-term efficiency. Two design adjustments are derived. First, long run incremental cost is introduced next to market-based redispatch, as in the UK. Perverse incentives are removed but the long-run optimum is missed. Second, interruptible network connections with secondary market, known from the gas sector, replace market-based redispatch. This solution is efficient in the short- and long-run

Coordination in smart energy systems? Contracting and pricing

This thesis studies energy system integration, that is mechanisms coordinating electricity sector with the broader energy system. More specifically, it utilizes microeconomic modeling and academic insights from industrial and institutional economics to develop coordination mechanisms capable of addressing flawed stakeholder coordination occurring within the electricity sector and at its interface to other energy sectors. This cumulative dissertation consists of five papers that together cover all three layers of energy system integration. Paper 1 addresses the whole-network optimization layer and asks whether independent operators of electricity networks have an incentive to cooperate in optimizing their interconnected networks. It demonstrates an incentive problem in power network operator interactions that turns these into game-theoretical problems like prisoner’s dilemma and chicken game. This makes optimization of electricity network as a single system difficult. Papers 2, 3 and 4 explore the whole-chain optimization layer of energy system integration which focuses at coordination between electricity network and power generation, storage, and consumption. Paper 2 evaluates the economic efficiency of administrative network congestion management, that is addressing network congestion by an administrative rule, and provides a policy advice on an efficient design. Paper 4 provides a similar result for market-based alternatives, where network congestion is addressed by market-based coordination between network and network users. Paper 3 reviews the empirical experience with such market-based type of congestion management. Paper 5 is concerned with the cross-system optimization layer. Aiming to provide a policy advice on a coherent institutional framework governing investment in the future hydrogen infrastructure, which is expected to be dispersed across multiple energy sectors, it reviews and evaluates current governance proposals raised by the European institutions

From east to west : learning, knowledge and personal development through migration and its impact upon return.

This research provided a theoretically-informed empirical exploration of the nature and significance of learning through the international migration experience. Furthermore, it explored how mobility contributes to the diffusion of new knowledge across socio-economic and national boundaries through return and circular flows. The context for the research was a post-communist, post-accession, transition economy located in the heart of Europe (Slovakia), but once part of the former Soviet-Bloc. This study also provided the context to gauge the extent to which the tenet of ‘freedom of movement’, in the form of circular East to West migration flows, contributed to professional and personal development. The focus was the formal and informal learning made possible through the international migration experience. The researcher employed face to face interviews to gather in-depth qualitative data. A sample of 30 returned migrants were interviewed, supplemented by interviews with key informants from business, government and civil society sectors in Slovakia. In turn, four respondent groups were approached, which culminated with 72 study respondents in total. The findings from the study revealed that international migration may be a context for accelerated learning, that contributes to professional but also personal development, in the form of hard and soft-skills acquisition, including key competencies such as enhanced confidence, independence and critical thinking. All of these attributes were identified to be in short supply in the post-communist labour market, and key to various transition issues, as addressed by the key informants. Comparatively, this study built on the seminal work of Williams and Balaz (2008) on international migration and knowledge. These scholars argued that international migration is an important vehicle for the acquisition, and circulation, of tacit knowledge. Potentially migrants constitute sources of key know-how, in addition to acting as boundary spanning knowledge brokers, that help to connect regions and/or countries through their embedded and encultured knowledge of multiple contexts. This study also built on Williams’ and Balaz’s (2008) theoretical perspectives, by focusing on international migration and knowledge, in addition to exploring the implications of this new learning on the individual. In the field of adult learning, knowledge is not just a brick by brick accumulation of information, but also highly personal. Therefore, knowledge is not just a process driven added-value for the individual, but may also be emancipatory. Therefore, this study explored how international migration can be a context for deep personal learning and not just professional knowledge acquisition. By applying Jack Mezirow’s (1991) transformative learning theory and linking the migration experience to a ‘disorienting dilemma’, this study concludes that international migration may contribute to transformative learning. The outcome can be the acquisition of a ‘more open, integrated and discerning’ meaning perspective

PolyGrid 2050: integrating hydrogen into the European energy transfer infrastructure landscape

Development of a hydrogen economy will depend on adequate transportation infrastructure. Most discussion of hydrogen transportation to date has focused on adapting natural gas networks, but the issue is more complex. Hydrogen can also be transported by dedicated new pipelines as well as other transportation networks (e.g., truck, rail, and marine transport) and even produced on-site by transferring electrical energy instead of hydrogen. In future, end users’ ability to switch from one form of delivery to another will result in new linkages between these diverse infrastructures in the sense that energy flows of different sectors will become more interdependent, and the widespread use of hydrogen is likely to strengthen this. This raises the fundamental question of how to prevent inefficiency (such as unnecessarily high hydrogen infrastructure costs or suboptimal utilization of gas and power networks) and redundancy in the future hydrogen transport infrastructure. This task is made more challenging by technological uncertainty, the unpredictability of future supply and demand for hydrogen, network externality effects, and investment irreversibility of grid-based infrastructures. Meeting these challenges entails coordinating investments in hydrogen transportation infrastructures across all modes in order to establish a cross-sectoral hydrogen polygrid. This paper analyses the strengths and shortcomings of three possible approaches—centrally coordinated, market-based, and regulatory—to this task. Finally, the paper offers policy recommendations on establishing a coherent institutional framework governing investment in the future hydrogen polygrid

Manager Perceptions of the Value of Returned Migrants and the Relational Nature of Knowledge

This article builds on the seminal work of Williams and Baláž (2008a) on international migration and knowledge, by arguing that the economic value of the knowledge is relational, being dependent on how it is recognised by potential employers. By analysing in-depth interviews with sixteen managers which are contrasted with insights from thirty interviews with skilled returnees to Slovakia, this study aims to identify the extent to which return migration is considered to facilitate knowledge transfer, and the diversification of the knowledge available, to organizations. The findings reveal that skilled migration is understood by managers to facilitate accelerated learning that contributes to professional and personal development in several ways. Firstly, formal qualifications gained abroad are valued, particularly in context of perceived limitations to the national educational system. Secondly, the managers consider that returnees have acquired not only technical skills, such as market know-how and business intelligence, but also soft skills. Finally, the study indicates that far from facing barriers to the recognition of their knowledge by employers, this was acknowledged and welcomed. Managers with personal exposure to international migration were predisposed to recognising the experiences of returned migrants, and this was most evident in the recruitment practices of the multinationals