ECN, the Netherlands
ECN, the leading centre for energy research & development in the Netherlands, is structured into five business units: Solar Energy, Wind Energy, Biomass and Energy Efficiency, Engineering & Services, Policy Studies. The 65 researchers in the Policy Studies unit have a background in engineering, economics, social science, environmental sciences, and collaborate in project teams to address energy and climate policy challenges using quantitative tools and qualitative analysis. One key focus area is the development of a coherent vision for the implications of large-scale DG/RES integration for trans-European electricity networks (IRENE-40) and integrated electricity and gas infrastructure (SUSPLAN).
Main contributions to the project:
ECN Policy Studies will be involved in work package 2, work package 5 and work package 6, building on its existing expertise on scenario development, regulatory assessment and economic modelling of electricity markets. In WP 2, it will contribute to tool assessment, scenario development, power market simulation and grid architecture simulation. ECN’s COMPETES electricity market and network model, and its previous applications (e.g. in the IRENE-40 project) are central to this work. In WP5, ECN Policy Studies is responsible for evaluating the target governance model against existing regulation and policy (task 5.3), and plays a key role in developing the implementation plan (task 5.4). It also provides input into the analysis and selection of the most promising regulatory models. In WP6, ECN will use the expertise developed in projects such as IRENE-40, WINDSPEED, RESPOND and SUSPLAN for the analysis of existing studies and the economic profitability analysis. ECN Policy Studies is also involved in the evaluation of financial and regulatory issues (providing a link with its work in WP5) and risk assessment.
