SOLIER Boris

For the past ten years, the public authorities have supported the photovoltaic industry in order to meet the objectives of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The support policies implemented have resulted in an unprecedented development of this sector, leading to a significant drop in production costs. The decrease has been so significant that, in many countries, photovoltaic production costs are lower than the retail price of electricity. Households are now encouraged to invest in a photovoltaic power plant in order to consume part of their own electricity. This so-called self-consumption phenomenon depends largely on the structure of the grid tariff. Currently, this tariff is mainly based on the energy drawn without time differentiation. This type of tariff does not reflect the costs of the electricity network operators, which are essentially fixed in the short and medium term. The decrease in revenue induced by self-consumption creates a deficit for the grid operators which must be covered by an increase in the grid tariff. This effect leads to cross-subsidies from standard consumers to self-consumers. The objective of this thesis is to address this issue and it consists of 4 chapters. In the first chapter, an analysis of support policies for self-consumption has been carried out for the following countries: Germany, the United Kingdom, Denmark, Spain and France. This study is based on bibliographic and documentary research in order to identify the strengths and weaknesses of these policies. In the second chapter, we study the indirect costs of the development of self-consumption for consumers. For this purpose, an estimate of cross-subsidies in France between 2017 and 2021 is proposed. This estimate is based on the calculation of aggregated self-consumption volumes at the national level, based on the reconstitution of load curves for different consumer and company profiles. In chapter 3, the current support mechanism is evaluated according to two criteria: the revenues generated by self-consumption and the support costs for the community. A simulation model has been developed to determine the profitability of a PV installation coupled with a battery under different network tariffs. In chapter 4, an estimation of the gains related to load shedding is performed. A battery charging optimization model has been developed to maximize the revenue from load shedding for the self-consumer.The thesis shows that policies to support self-consumption have neglected the indirect costs associated with network tariffs. Changes in the structure of the grid tariff are needed to limit cross-subsidies on the one hand, and to take advantage of the benefits that self-consumption can bring to the grid or to the power system in general on the other. Tariff signals are needed to increase the value of self-consumption, but this can only be achieved by changing the current subsidy scheme that does not encourage the adoption of batteries. The results show that a premium for battery investment would be less costly for the community but would limit the development of self-consumption.

The ARENH (regulated access to historical nuclear energy) mechanism, which since 2011 has allowed alternative suppliers to acquire 100 TWh of nuclear electricity at the regulated price of 42 euros per MWh, is now being challenged. Alternative suppliers want to raise the ARENH ceiling to 150 TWh, while EDF is calling for the ARENH price to be raised well above its current level. In early 2020, the public authorities submitted a project for public debate that would replace the ARENH system with a price "corridor" type mechanism. All nuclear electricity would be purchased at the wholesale market price by all suppliers (including EDF) and financial compensation would be paid ex post between EDF, a nuclear producer, and alternative suppliers when the market price falls below a floor price or exceeds a ceiling price. The purpose of this article is to recall the evolution of the ARENH mechanism, to explain its criticisms and weaknesses. It is then to analyze the new mechanism proposed by the CRE, to measure its consequences for operators as well as for the final consumer.

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The deployment of renewable energies relies upon incentive policies to make their use profitable for the owner. Increasing costs of renewable support result in rising public service obligation tariffs to fund these policies. The photovoltaic prosumption could help decreasing the cost of developing renewables but induces cross-subsidies between prosumers and other users of the network that may compensate the benefits. We show that such cross-subsidies do occur but are dependent on the self-consumption rate that will remain low in the coming years. The regulator could fund these cross-subsidies by increasing the fixed part of the network tariff for prosumers only.

The deployment of renewable energies relies upon incentive policies to make their use profitable for owner. However, their development needs adjustments of network to manage intermittency and additional energy fed into the grid. Moreover, the Public Service Obligation Tariffs (PSOT) are increasing to fund policies that support renewable energy deployment. Therefore, some decisions are taken to promote self-consumption by owners of renewable energy power plants, as photovoltaic prosumers. This behavior is encouraged by payment exemptions of PSOT, special tariffs dedicated to remunerate each self-consumed energy unit or savings on the variable part of the network tariff. Thus, some cross-subsidies appear between self-consumers and other users of the network to compensate all these previous self-consumers' gains. We show that these cross-subsidies occur but they strongly rely on self-consumption rate and on renewable energy share in the total produced or consumed energy. So, currently, the levels of cross-subsidies are not significant for consumers. We also show that regulator could fund these cross-subsidies increasing the fixed part of the network tariff for prosumers.

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This thesis evaluates the interactions between the European CO2 trading scheme and the electricity markets over the period 2005-2012. It uses econometric and modelling tools to explain the observed market developments and to draw lessons for future policies. The ex-post analysis of the introduction of a carbon price on the European electricity markets reveals three types of interactions: on the formation of electricity prices . on techno-economic choices and CO2 emissions . on the formation of electricity rents. Empirical estimates show that the degree of carbon price pass-through to electricity prices is generally not homogeneous but varies across time and markets depending on a combination of factors. The impacts of the carbon price on the technology mix and CO2 emissions of the electricity sector are estimated from the ZEPHYR-Elec simulation model, which aims to reproduce the short-term electricity supply-demand equilibrium. Emission reductions from power generation induced by the European allowance market represent 3% to 5% of the counterfactual emissions. Since 2012, the carbon price no longer compensates for the gas-coal price differential in Europe. The distributional effects of the carbon price on the power sector are introduced in the ZEPHYR-Elec model based on an analytical representation of rent formation. The estimates suggest that the profits of the power sector are globally higher due to the carbon price, including in the case of auctioned allowances.

This paper investigates the link between wholesale electricity prices in Europe and the CO2 cost, i.e. the price of European Union Allowances (EUAs), over the two first phases of the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS). We set up a theoretical framework and an empirical model to estimate to what extent daily fluctuations of CO2 costs may have impacted electricity prices. Regarding estimation results for the first phase of the EU ETS, about 42% of estimated pass-through rates appear to be statistically significant, while only one third of them are statistically different from zero in the second phase. We try to improve those results by proposing alternative estimates based on the EU ETS compliance periods.

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