Abstract:
In the context of global warming, reducing CO2 emissions is a key climate policy objective. This is especially true for the energy sector which contributes to 70% of the humanly generated emissions. Yet, the decarbonising initiatives also have negative repercussions for the electricity grid, which is bound to physical constraints such as the necessity to maintain a constant balance between production and consumption to avoid black-out risks. Since renewable electricity production is less predictable as a result of being weather-dependent, ensuring network balancing is more complicated under a decarbonised electricity sector.
To enable both the energy transition and the functioning of the grid, national regulatory authorities have adopted new structures of network tariffs to induce consumption changes from electricity consumers. Network tariffs are used to remunerate network operators primarily for maintaining the electricity network. With the newly adopted structures, network tariffs are also supposed to pursue other objectives, such as matching consumption with renewable electricity production.
Based on these recent changes and the use of network tariffs in the Belgian electricity sector as a case study, Marie’s doctoral dissertation aims to analyse how the energy transition is affecting the approach to regulating the electricity sector. In her presentation, Marie will present her PhD research, her research objectives and methodology, with the aim of receiving feedback for improving her project.
About the speaker:
Marie Beudels is a PhD candidate at the Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB) under the supervision of Prof Emmanuel Slautsky. Her research focuses on energy law, energy transition, the electricity sector and electricity network tariffs. Marie holds a bachelor’s degree (2017) and a master’s degree (2019) in law from the University of Liège and a LL.M degree (2020) from Harvard Law School.