157/2013 Luigi Grossi and Michael Waterson

The German response to the Fukushima nuclear power plant incident was possibly the most significant change of policy towards nuclear power outside Japan, leading to a sudden and very significant shift in the underlying power generation structure in Germany. This provides a very useful natural experiment on the impact of changing proportions of conventional fuel inputs to power production, helping us to see how changed proportions in future as a result of policy moves in favour of renewables are likely to impact. We find through exploration of a conventional demand- supply framework that despite the swift, significant change, the main impact was a relatively modest increase in prices occasioned by a shift of the supply curve; there were no appreciable quantity effects on the market, such as power outages, despite some views that the impacts would be significant.

Culture and Development

2013 10th International Conference on the European Energy Market (EEM) Energy Economics

http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/EEM.2013.6607385 or https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eneco.2017.07.010