Offshore Electricity Infrastructure in Europe - European Wind Energy ...

A.II.III National fuel price scenarios
for gas
Gas prices play an important role in modelling the
European energy market because of the following
aspects:
• Due to the increasing share of fluctuating renewable
energy, gas power plants will be operated more
frequently and therefore set the price of the merit
order 52 with rising probability.
• In contrast to nuclear fuel and hard coal, gas prices
differ largely between countries.
Thus, variable gas prices are one of the most important
factors that determine country-specific energy
generation costs. In order to model the European
energy market, country-specific gas price paths were
developed.
FiGuRe 9.7: cO 2 pRice scenaRiOs
CO 2 price
(€2007/tonne CO 2 )
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
52 The merit order represents the supply curve of electricity generation. The generation units are ranked according to their marginal
production price. Wind energy for instance has zero marginal production costs and is therefore one of the first units chosen for
meet electricity demand.
53 See Verein der Kohleimporteure: Annual Report 2009; EUROSTAT: Key figures on Europe 2009 edition; EWI, EEFA:
Energiewirtschaftliches Gesamtkonzept 2030, 2009
54 In the long-term both the variable and fixed costs must be recovered.
OffshoreGrid – Final Report
BMU 2007 (low)
BMU 2007 (slight)
BMU 2007 (massive)
BMU 2008 (slight)
BMU 2008 (average)
BMU 2008 (massive increase) [2]
The results are illustrated in Figure 9.6. Gas prices
differ strongly in 2010 and tend to harmonise towards
2030. In Germany and UK, prices are the highest (due
to high gas prices for industrial consumers).
A.II.IV National fuel price scenarios
for lignite coal
Due to the high transport costs (relatively low amount
of energy per weight unit), lignite is not traded on
national or international markets. Thus, there is no
market price for lignite coal. This means that for all
European countries in which lignite is produced, nearly
the same amount which is extracted is also consumed
for energy production. 53 Furthermore in most countries
geological extraction and electricity production from
lignite are conducted by the same company. The company
will operate the lignite power plant as long as the
variable costs are covered. 54 Hence, for modelling the
merit order, the variable lignite extraction costs must
be used instead of the price.
2010 2015 2020 2025 2030
dena 2008
DB 2008
ECX EUA Futures
ECX EUA Futures (2009)
ECX EUA Futures (2008)
111