Models of restructured electricity systems

The work presented in this thesis is a collection of four different research projects, conducted at the intersection between academic and industrial fields, and related to the restructuring of the electricity industry. Many models have been proposed to organise restructured electricity systems. We first propose a unified mathematical framework for expressing them, using variational inequalities. This allows the use of existence and uniqueness theorems, but also leads to models that can be solved by existing numerical algorithms. In the second part, we present a model of the European Commission proposals on cross-border trade, in particular access to the network and congestion issues. The model allows for various domestic regulation of the national non-eligible market, and different forms of competition in the eligible market. We illustrate this flexibility on a stylised example, and identify policy issues to be studied in a more realistic case study. The third contribution elaborates on the modelling of imperfect competition on electricity markets, more specifically the integration of imperfect competition behaviours in power models, through conjectural variations. We propose a consistent estimation procedure. Finally, a model of the EU Emission Trading Scheme, limiting the total CO2 emissions, is proposed. We illustrate the effect of some basic economic assumptions on the investment and generation mix, and how these assumptions impact the permit price and affect profitability. The novel part is in the way allocation mechanisms for subsequent commitment periods can potentially distort the behaviour of CO2 emitting agents.