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Structural improvements in aircraft design, seeking to improve energy efficiency, can significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) by reducing reduced fuel consumption. This research reviews improvements with the introduction of a structural component known as "winglet;" these are positioned at the top of the aircraft wing, and increased Airbus Group A320 sales. Data used are taken from air traffic in Spain for the 2010–2014 period with projections being made for 2020. The results show that winglets reduce CO2 equivalent emissions associated with Spain's air transport for the 2015–2020 period between 66.29 and 59.56 Gg. depending on the scenario considered in 2020. Junta de Andalucía proyecto SEJ-132 Fundación Roger Torné, Universidad de Sevilla, Cátedra de Economía de la Energía y del Medio Ambiente 1394/0103 Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad de España ECO2014-56399-R Universidad Autónoma de Chile

The Spanish wholesale electricity market remains controversial due to the suspicion of there being collusive behaviour, as the main generation companies still share 55% of the wholesale market. Up to 2018, the Spanish National Competition Authority had to investigate all the complaints received, contributing to discouraging collusive behaviours in the electricity market but also employing a significant amount of resources. Since 2018, the ECN + Directive has given more independence to the National Competition Authorities of EU Member States and has allowed them to reject the complaints that are not considered a priority and choose the most relevant ones. This paper provides a tool that makes the supervision of the wholesale electricity market easier and enables a better use of resources. The tool is tested for a timespan including the same month (December) from 2012 to 2017. The period selected starts once non-conventional renewable technologies began to operate and lasts until the ECN + Directive came into force. In the first two steps, the tool allows a screening of the timespan, looking for possible anomaly periods based on the variance values of the daily electricity cost and the average monthly value. Secondly, the third tool step presents a methodology based on a spatial LMDI-I decomposition analysis. This approach allows analysing the key driver effects that explain the differences between the daily cost of electricity of some technologies and the monthly average of those periods pointed out in the two previous steps. To ensure robustness, the same approach has been tested on control periods prior to and after the anomaly month.

In addition to public policies aimed at improving the energy efficiency of buildings, EU authorities have also promoted the use of Renewable Energy Sources for heating and cooling uses (RES H&C). This paper analyses the main policy measures implemented in EU-27 countries up to 2009: i.e. subsidies, tax incentives, financial support and feed-in tariffs. Twenty-three Member States (MSs) have developed some of these policy measures. The most widespread measure is the subsidy (22 MSs have implemented these) because from a political point of view, subsidies provide a straightforward approach to promote the use of RES H&C. Secondly, tax incentives have been used for reducing investment costs and making renewable energy profitable. Thirdly, financial incentives and feed-in tariffs have been used sparingly. While financial incentives might be used more extensively for promoting RES H&C if they are accompanied by other policy measures, feed-in tariffs are not likely to be implemented significantly in the future because this measure is not designed for household heat producers.

This paper provides a comprehensive overview of the main tax incentives used in the EU-27 member states (MSs) to promote green electricity. Sixteen MSs use tax incentives to promote green electricity simultaneously with other promotion measures, especially quota obligations and price regulation. However, not all available technologies are promoted. For example, six MSs (Germany, Romania, Slovak Republic, Denmark, Sweden and Poland) have included an exemption on the payments of excise duties for electricity when the electricity is generated from renewable energy sources (RES). This tax incentive is the most widely used. Limited tax incentives in personal income tax are available in Belgium, France, Czech Republic and Luxembourg. In corporate tax, tax incentives consist mainly of a deduction in the taxable profit (Belgium, Greece, Czech Republic and Spain). Lower tax rates in VAT are applied in three MSs, France, Italy and Portugal. Only Spain and Italy use effective tax incentives in property tax. As a great diversity of tax incentives has been used to promote green electricity, this adds another difficulty to the EU objective of providing a renewable energy policy framework, but also it offers a useful set of case studies which can be used to inform EU policy development.