This paper presents a set of policy recommendations for the market design of a future European electricity system characterized by a dominant share of intermittent renewable energy supply (RES), in line with the stated targets of European governments. We discuss the market failures that need to be addressed to accommodate RES in liberalized electricity markets, review the evolution of the EU's RES policy mechanisms, and summarize the key market impacts of RES to date. We then set out economic principles for market design and use these to develop our policy recommendations. Our analysis covers the value of interconnection and market integration, electricity storage, the design of RES support mechanisms, distributed generation and network tariffs, the pricing of electricity and flexibility as well as long-term contracting and risk management. AbstractThis paper presents a set of policy recommendations for the market design of a future European electricity system characterized by a dominant share of intermittent renewable energy supply (RES), in line with the stated targets of European governments. We discuss the market failures that need to be addressed to accommodate RES in liberalized electricity markets, review the evolution of the EU's RES policy mechanisms, and summarize the key market impacts of RES to date. We then set out economic principles for market design and use these to develop our policy recommendations. Our analysis covers the value of interconnection and market integration, electricity storage, the design of RES support mechanisms, distributed generation and network tariffs, the pricing of electricity and flexibility as well as long-term contracting and risk management.

COVID-19 pandemic instigated a digital revolution in academia and higher education. Social distancing, months-long quarantine, as economic shutdown will help the majority of people working in academia and higher education not only to complete their personal transition to the fully functional and operational online tuition, but also to understand that online defences, online entrance and final exams, as well as online academic jobs are as effective and meaningful as those conducted “in real life”. Due to the crisis induced by the coronavirus epidemic, innovations in academia and higher education that would have normally taken several years due to the various contradictory administrative regulations are now introduced promptly in a matter of days. This is a clear example of the Schumpeterian ‘creative destruction’ in making that will forever change the status quo in academia and higher education.

Abstractrural micro-enterprises are an important factor in sustainable rural development in post-transitional Eastern Europe. This paper deals with determining the key factors influencing profitability in rural micro-enterprises in Poland. The research design was based on a questionnaire survey of 300 rural micro-enterprises in the food-processing sector in rich and poor Polish provinces. The analysis carried out in this study is centered around the Polish EU accession in May 2004. similar to other related studies, our results show that EU accession was not perceived as a major change by rural Polish micro-entrepreneurs and that the EU related factors were not significant determinants of their profitability. However, our results also show that the success of the rural food processing micro-enterprise in Eastern Europe is most related to its owner/manager and enterprise characteristics. for the owner/manager the most significant determinants are his/her age and risk-taking as the main motive for establishing an enterprise. The enterprise characteristics that determine the profitability include enterprise location within a region with competitive situation, enterprise size (being a sole trader or family enterprise), icT advancements in enterprise and the fact whether the enterprise has any certificates for its products. The results have significant implications for the researchers and

Th e paper focuses on determining the key factors that infl uence the competitiveness of rural small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the Czech Republic. Rural SMEs play an important part in sustainable rural development, post-transformation processes, as well as in the integrated development of formal and informal rural institutions in the Czech economy. Th e research design is based on a questionnaire survey conducted with a sample of 1144 randomly selected Czech rural SMEs. Th ere was applied a one-way error model expressed either by the fi xed eff ects (FE) model and the random eff ect (RE) model with the error term consisting of two components: a time-invariant component and a remainder component that is assumed to be uncorrelated over time. It was also attempted to rule out the individual location eff ects in the econometric model by using the location variables (location dummies).Th e results also show that the success of the rural SMEs in the Czech Republic is mostly related to its manager and enterprise characteristics. Th e most signifi cant determinants of rural enterprise's competitiveness are location within a region with competitive situation, the enterprise size, the enterprise age, and the fact whether the enterprise has some form of innovation. Th e results might have signifi cant implications for both academics and stakeholders and can be used as a basis for the targeted rural enterprise policies in the Czech Republic and in the post-transitional Eastern and Central Europe.

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Renewable energy sources (RES) are gradually becoming one of the key elements in the process of achieving energy efficiency worldwide. This trend can be observed in many developed Western economies—for example, in the United States, as well as in the United Kingdom. Hence, the role of innovative policies for promoting energy efficiency is becoming crucial in transition to the post-carbon economy. The shift to the carbon-free future make all actors to face forgoing commitments Nevertheless, customers and residential households are the first and the most important players in the pursuit of the energy-efficient future. Without them, carbon-free economy based on RES would never take the shape as envisaged. Our paper focuses on the innovative strategies and policies studying the effect and the scope of RES penetration into the households. We employ and empirical analysis of the effects from using RES in households using an example of the residential households in the northwest region of the United Kingdom (UK) with and without solar photovoltaic (PV) panels and electric vehicles (EV). We analyse the four scenarios that are aimed at analysing the system dynamics and providing differentiation between systems in terms of the varying values of the gross demand, tariffs, metered import, and the total revenue. Our results demonstrate that the solar PV leads to the transfer of costs and wealth regardless of the ownership of PV and EVs. Solar energy generation reduces the share of UK solar PV households per kWh costs of the distribution system which causes the augmenting of the per unit charges as well as to the changes in payments for the electricity that impoverishes less wealthy customer groups. It also becomes clear that with the increase of EV penetration, the existing energy efficiency schemes would have to be revised.

Nowadays, one of the most imminent problems facing power systems in post-industrial countries is the sustainable development of power systems under conditions of increasing power consumption irregularity due to the reduction of the industry's share in consumers' demand for electric power. In today's Russia, this issue is becoming very acute due to the significant share of electric power and heat co-generation that is demonstrating low manoeuvrability and poor adaptation to operations in the daily variation of electric power demand. This paper considers the problem of improving the power system steady-state through the optimization of the production structure of thermal power plants. We propose a combinatorial algorithm that improves the planning of the structural and technological modernization of the power equipment configuration, with a glance at the forecast of the increasing irregularity of power consumption.

ABSTRACT. This paper discusses the implications of autonomous self* (self-configuring, self-healing, selfoptimizing and self-protecting) systems for the development of the electrical smart grids of the future. It assesses several scenarios of the future development without prioritizing any of them. The paper employs the data from the Smart Metering Electricity Customer Behaviour Trials conducted by the Commission for Energy Regulation and kindly provided by the Irish Social Science Data Archive (ISSDA) to test the consumers' attitude toward smart meters and adaptive energy tariffs. The findings suggest that when it comes to the implementation of the new approaches to generating, supplying, and monitoring of electrical energy, most of the consumers retain the old-fashioned approach and are driven by the economic incentives. Thence, the developments of the smart grids of the future (or the system will exist beyond these smart grids) is very likely to be shaped by the economic behaviour of the optimizing rational agents on the market.