Understanding the European energy crisis through structural causal models
Nature Communications, vol. 17
Abstract
Natural gas supplies in Europe were disrupted and energy prices soared in the context of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Electricity prices in France experienced the largest relative increase among European countries, even though the share of natural gas in the electricity mix is small compared to its neighbours. In this article, we demonstrate the importance of causal statistical methods and propose causal graphs to investigate the French and Spanish electricity markets and pinpoint key influencing factors on electricity prices and net exports. We demonstrate that a causal approach resolves paradoxical results of simple correlation studies and enables a quantitative analysis of indirect causal effects and what-if scenarios. We introduce a linear structural causal model as well as non-linear tree-based machine learning combined with Shapley Flow values. The models elucidate the interplay of gas prices and the unavailability of nuclear power plants during the energy crisis as the high unavailability made France dependent on imports.
Authors 7
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Forschungszentrum Jülich · University of Cologne
Affiliation as printed
Institute for Theoretical Physics, University of Cologne, Köln, Germany
Institute of Climate and Energy Systems: Energy Systems Engineering (ICE-1), Forschungszentrum Jülich, Jülich, Germany
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Karlsruhe Institute of Technology
Affiliation as printed
Institute for Automation and Applied Informatics, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Eggenstein-Leopoldshafen, Germany
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Karlsruhe Institute of Technology
Affiliation as printed
Institute for Automation and Applied Informatics, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Eggenstein-Leopoldshafen, Germany
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Forschungszentrum Jülich · University of Cologne
Affiliation as printed
Institute for Theoretical Physics, University of Cologne, Köln, Germany
Institute of Climate and Energy Systems: Energy Systems Engineering (ICE-1), Forschungszentrum Jülich, Jülich, Germany
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Aaron Praktiknjo Aachen Chair for Energy System Economics (FCN-ESE) Institute for Future Energy Consumer Needs and Behavior E.ON Energy Research Center
RWTH Aachen University · Jülich Aachen Research Alliance
Affiliation as printed
Chair for Energy System Economics, Institute for Future Energy Consumer Needs and Behavior (FCN), E.ON Energy Research Center, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany
JARA-ENERGY, Aachen, Germany
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Karlsruhe Institute of Technology
Affiliation as printed
Institute for Automation and Applied Informatics, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Eggenstein-Leopoldshafen, Germany. benjamin.schaefer@kit.edu
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Forschungszentrum Jülich · University of Cologne · Jülich Aachen Research Alliance
Affiliation as printed
Institute for Theoretical Physics, University of Cologne, Köln, Germany. d.witthaut@fz-juelich.de
Institute of Climate and Energy Systems: Energy Systems Engineering (ICE-1), Forschungszentrum Jülich, Jülich, Germany. d.witthaut@fz-juelich.de
JARA-ENERGY, Aachen, Germany. d.witthaut@fz-juelich.de
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