Creative Commons

This dissertation was written as a part of the MSc in Energy Systems at the Interna-tional Hellenic University. The purpose of this thesis is to provide a brief survey on the impacts of the European Union’s Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS) on electricity in-vestments and prices with greater focus on wholesale and retail prices. About the half of the dissertation is involved with important findings of the literature review about the impact of EU ETS on electricity investments and prices. Then, the lib-eralization process in the European electricity sector is discussed and issues about the interconnection between competitiveness and EU ETS are addressed. The main trading methods in energy market in which carbon emissions rights and related products are traded, follows. Additionally, information and characteristics of wholesale electricity market, in which the carbon emissions rights are traded, are elaborated. Furthermore, some important characteristics of the retail electricity market are discussed, accompa-nied with the impact of EU ETS on retail prices and why it is different from the impact on wholesale prices. Finally, is exhibited the effectiveness of price increases due to emissions trading scheme and some findings about the impact of EU ETS on energy sector investments.