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Gas 2018. Paris : International Energy Agency, June 2018, 153 p. (Market report series) https://webstore.iea.org/market-report-series-gas-2018The gas industry’s future remains bright. Three major shifts will shape the evolution of global natural gas markets in the next five years – growing imports from China, greater industrial demand, and rising production from the United States. The structural shift will determine the evolution of the market at a time when growth in emerging markets is sustained by strong economic expansion and strong policy support to curb air pollution. Industry becomes a major player in gas markets, while the United States cements its position as a top producer and exporter thanks to its shale revolution. Gas 2018, the latest IEA annual market report, assesses these trends and provides a detailed analysis of supply and trade developments, infrastructure investments, and demand-growth forecast through 2023. The report analyses the main changes that will likely transform the natural gas market, including market reforms that shape supply and demand patterns in key Asian economies and developments in the LNG market – the main driver of interregional natural gas trade growth.South Korea's Energy Policy Change and the Implications for its LNG Imports / Keun Wook Paik. Oxford Institute for Energy Studies, June 2018, 28 p. https://www.oxfordenergy.org/publications/south-koreas-energy-policy-change-implications-lng-imports/The new energy policy of Moon Jae-In's administration aims to swing radically from coal and nuclear towards renewables and LNG for power generation. During the last 12 months the priority given to the expansion of renewable energy has been overwhelming and the support for the expansion of gas not as strong as many observers had expected. This paper aims at examining the characteristics of this new energy policy and its implications for the gas industry, in particular the expansion of LNG imports.Policies for decarbonizing a liberalized power sector / David Newbery, Economics, No. 2018-40, June 22, 2018 http://www.economics-ejournal.org/economics/journalarticles/2018-40Given the agreed urgency of decarbonizing electricity and the need to guide decentralized private decisions, an adequate and credible carbon price appears essential. The paper models and quantifies the break-even carbon price for mature zero-carbon electricity investments. It appears an attractive alternative given the difficulty of measuring the social cost of carbon, but modelling shows it extremely sensitive to projected fuel prices, the rate of interest, and the capital cost of generation options, all of which are very uncertain. This has important implications, and justifies combining a carbon price floor with suitable long-term contracts for electricity investments.Distributed Generation in Unbundled Electricity Markets / Johannes Wagner. Institute of Energy Economics at the University of Cologne (EWI), June 2018, 35 p. (EWI Working Paper, No 18/01) http://www.ewi.uni-koeln.de/fileadmin/user_upload/Publikationen/Working_Paper/EWI_WP_18-01_Distributed_Generation_in_Unbundled_Electricity_Markets.pdfElectricity systems are increasingly characterized by distributed generation technologies, e.g. rooftop photovoltaic systems, which are used by end consumers to directly produce electricity. Additionally, empirical evidence suggests that electricity retailers exercise market power in many unbundled electricity markets. Against this backdrop this article analyzes the impact of distributed generation on imperfect retail markets for electricity in a spatial competition framework. I find that distributed generation puts competitive pressure on retailers and induces lower retail prices. Therefore even consumers who do not use distributed generation benefit. Based on this effect regulators can shift welfare to consumers by subsidizing distributed generation in order to position it as a competitor to grid based electricity. However, if only a limited share of demand can be supplied with distributed generation, there is a point at which retailers disregard the substitutable share of demand and focus on the non-substitutable consumption in order to realize higher mark-ups. As a result, increased subsidies for distributed generation can increase retail prices and harm consumers. With optimal subsidies this strategy of retailers is prevented by limiting usage of distributed generation.Quarterly Gas Review – Analysis of Prices and Recent Events, n° 1 &#38; n° 2 / Thierry Bros. Oxford : OIES, 2018 https://www.oxfordenergy.org/publications/quarterly-gas-review-analysis-prices-recent-events-issue-2/A new series published by the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies