Despite regulation efforts, CO 2 emissions from European road transport have continued to rise. Increased use of electricity offers a promising decarbonization option, both to fuel electric vehicles and run powerto-x systems producing synthetic fuels. To understand the economic implications of increased coupling of the road transport and electricity sectors, an integrated multi-sectoral partial-equilibrium investment and dispatch model is developed for the European electricity and road transport sectors, linked by an energy transformation module to endogenously account for, e.g., increasing electricity consumption and flexibility provision from electric vehicles and power-to-x systems. The model is applied to analyze the effects of sectorspecific CO 2 reduction targets on the vehicle, electricity and ptx technology mix as well as trade flows of ptx fuels in European countries from 2020 to 2050. The results show that, by 2050, the fuel shares of electricity and ptx fuels in the European road transport sector reach 37 % and 27 %, respectively, creating an additional electricity demand of 1200 TWh in Europe. To assess the added value of the integrated modeling approach, an additional analysis is performed in which all endogenous ties between sectors are removed. The results show that by decoupling the two sectors, the total system costs may be significantly overestimated and the production costs of ptx fuels may be inaccurately approximated, which may affect the merit order of decarbonization options.

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Based upon probabilistic reliability metrics, we develop an optimization model to determine the efficient amount and location of firm generation capacity to achieve reliability targets in multi-regional electricity systems. A particular focus lies on the representation and contribution of transmission capacities as well as variable renewable resources. Calibrating our model with a comprehensive dataset for Europe, we find that there are substantial benefits from regional cooperation. The amount of firm generation capacity to meet a perfectly reliably system could be reduced by 36.2 GW (i.e., 6.4 %) compared to an isolated regional approach, which translates to savings of 14.5 bn Euro. Interconnectors contribute in both directions, with capacity values up to their technical maximum of close to 200 %, while wind power contributions are in the range of 3.8-29.5 %. Furthermore, we find that specific reliability targets heavily impact the efficient amount and distribution of reliable capacity as well as the contribution of individual technologies.

Electricity markets are increasingly influenced by variable renewable energy such as wind and solar power with a pronounced weather-induced variability and imperfect predictability. As a result, the evaluation of the capacity value of variable renewable energy, i.e. its contribution to security of supply, gains importance. This paper develops a new methodology to endogenously determine the capacity value in large-scale investment and dispatch models for electricity markets. The framework allows to account for balancing effects due to the spatial distribution of generation capacities and interconnectors. The practical applicability of the methodology is shown with an application for wind power in Europe. We find that wind power can substantially contribute to security of supply in a decarbonized European electricity system in 2050, with regional capacity values ranging from 1-40 %. Analyses, which do not account for the temporal and spatial heterogeneity of the contribution of wind power to security of supply therefore lead to inefficient levels of dispatchable backup capacity. Applying a fixed wind power capacity value of 5 % results in an overestimation of firm capacity requirements in Europe by 66 GW in 2050. This translates to additional firm capacity provision costs of 3.8 bn EUR per year in 2050, which represents an increase of 7 %.