Management of local Citizen Energy Communities and Bilateral Contracting in Multi-Agent Electricity Markets

Over the last few decades, the electricity sector has experienced several changes, resulting in different electricity markets (EMs) models and paradigms. In particular, liberalization has led to the establishment of a wholesale market for electricity generation and a retail market for electricity retailing. In competitive EMs, customers can do the following: freely choose their electricity suppliers; invest in variable renewable energy such as solar photovoltaic; become prosumers; or form local alliances such as Citizen Energy Communities (CECs). Trading of electricity can be done in spot and derivatives markets, or by bilateral contracts. This article focuses on CECs. Specifically, it presents how agent-based local consumers can form alliances as CECs, manage their resources, and trade on EMs. It also presents a review of how agent-based systems can model and support the formation and interaction of alliances in the electricity sector. The CEC can trade electricity directly with sellers through private bilateral agreements. During the negotiation of private bilateral contracts, the CEC receives the prices and volumes of their members and according to its negotiation strategy, tries to satisfy the electricity demands of all members and reduce their costs for electricity.

Risk and Ambiguity in Turbulent Times

This paper focuses on the 2008–2020 period during which two major crises, affecting the economy and the financial markets, occurred. Between 2008 and 2020, there were less extreme tail events, including the lingering Eurozone and Greece crises. In particular, after extremely high stock market volatility and volatility of volatility (VoV) during 2008, the long-run average volatility declined to about 20% and the VoV to around 100%. This paper analyzes this period through the lens of risk and ambiguity (uncertainty). It aims to address the question: what are the financial markets that trade risk — the volatility derivatives markets — telling us? To this end, this paper uses several measures of uncertainty. It reviews the history of volatility and uncertainty measures and discusses their informativeness. It then discusses the information derived from volatility derivatives.

The Economics of Central Clearing

Central clearing counterparties (CCPs) have a variety of economic rationales. The Great Recession of 2007–2009 led regulators to mandate CCPs for most interest-rate and credit derivatives, markets in which large amounts of risks are transferred across agents. This change led to a large increase in CCP studies, which along with classical studies are surveyed in this article. For example, multilateral netting, the insurance against counterparty risk, the effect of CCPs on asset prices and fire sales, margins setting, the default waterfall, and CCP governance are discussed here. We review both CCP theory and empirical work and conclude by discussing regulatory issues. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Financial Economics, Volume 13 is March 2021. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.

Part VII International Securities, Including Markets and Clearing Systems, 23 Hong Kong Markets and Exchanges

This chapter describes the main elements of the current financial sector activity in Hong Kong and the conditions under which they function. It highlights Hong Kong's financial markets and economy that have suffered an economic downturn following the 2019 protests and sustained by the Covid—19 pandemic. It also mentions how Hong Kong implements the principal standards and reforms adopted at the international level, particularly in relation to the resolution of Global Systemically Important Financial Institutions (G—SIFIs). This chapter provides an overview of the monetary, banking, equity, debt, insurance, and derivatives markets in Hong Kong. It talks about Hong Kong's de facto constitution, the Basic Law, which aids the economy in maintaining its capitalist system for fifty years from 1 July 1997.