It is with great pleasure that we bring you this special issue of OGEL dedicated to "Electricity Market Design". The special issue builds on presentations hold during the annual conference of the ELAWNET project [1] at the University of Oslo, Norway, in its 2024 and 2025 editions. The ELAWNET project deals with research network activities on the law of electricity market design and just energy transition to accompany the move towards net-zero emissions energy systems. It addresses a central topic for the development of the society in relation to regulatory models for electricity markets and implementation of energy transition law and policy. The project is led by the Department of Energy and Resources Law at the University of Oslo[2], in collaboration with the Research Group in Natural Resources Law.[3] It builds on international cooperation, notably with the University of Richmond School of Law (USA).

Electricity market design refers to the set of rules that govern how market actors generate, trade, supply and consume electricity and use the electricity infrastructure (transmission and distribution). The term covers the market, regulatory and policy frameworks in the power sector. There is no one-size-fits-all approach to electricity market design, as countries have different starting points. Moreover, design features may serve different purposes.

The current electricity market design is the result of a development that began at least some 30 years ago. It was shaped by some fundamental concepts such as liberalisation and unbundling, and evolved into a detailed regulation where market principles interact with overriding objectives, such as security of supply and consumer protection. Today, electricity markets, through their regulatory design, are expected to deliver the energy transition towards net-zero goals and to ensure affordability and consumer empowerment. Consequently, electricity market design has been a topic of discussion in the context of the energy transition. In addition, the disruptions observed on energy markets in conjunction with the war in Ukraine have nourished a new debate on the topic. Regulatory interventions in market design legislation are becoming more common, raising questions about tensions between market signals and governmental steering towards policy objectives. A clear conclusion is that market design is not neutral, and electricity markets perform according to their design features.

With an evolving energy mix, a higher share of decentralised energy resources, and the need to protect markets from external supply disruptions, there is a clear need for academic discussion on the legal regulation of electricity markets. This special issue aims to contribute to that effort by bringing a series of topical and comparative analyses.

This special issue opens with an article by Joel Eisen on the "Impacts of Recent US Supreme Court Administrative Law Jurisprudence on The Electricity Wholesale Markets". The article looks at the consequences of recent decisions by the US Supreme Court that have resulted in a shift toward limiting the authority of US federal administrative agencies, including the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), which is responsible for the nation's wholesale electricity markets. The analysis shows that while these decisions can have a significant impact on the functioning of the wholesale markets, FERC's statutory authority may provide some useful safeguards against litigation aimed at challenging its major regulatory orders that led to and modify modern market structures.

In the next article, Shray Tapiawala investigates the combined challenges of developing offshore wind projects and addressing grid congestion queues. The author asks whether PJM, one of the largest Regional Transmission Organizations (RTOs) in the U.S., is adhering to FERC Order Nos. 2023 and 2023-A when implementing FERC interconnection reforms, and whether this contributes to hampering offshore wind development in the U.S.

Staying offshore, Catherine Banet explores in her article the question of the choice of market design rules for hybrid offshore wind projects (so-called hybrids) under European Union (EU) law. Hybrids refer to a project set-up that combines electricity production from offshore wind farms with electricity trade through interconnector(s) between bidding areas located in several countries. Based on the assumption that the same market design rules should apply to the entire European power system (i.e. both onshore and offshore), the article identifies six building blocks of electricity market design regulation as defined in EU law and assesses their applicability to hybrids.

Following the outbreak of the war in Ukraine and the related gas supply disruptions affecting electricity prices, Europe adopted in 2024 a targeted revision of its electricity legislation entitled EU Electricity Market Design (EMD) Reform. In their article, Emma Menegatti, Ellen Beckstedde, Max Münchmeyer and Leonardo Meeus provide a systematic review of the EMD Reform, including its legal and regulatory innovations, and assess it on the background of four overarching policy objectives, i.e. consumer protection, reinforcing the private side of the market, investment adequacy and grids. They reflect on the long-term effects of the reform and its possible contestation.

In their article, Priya Prasad, Charlotte Hopkinson and Mohammed Loraoui provide an important analysis of Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs), the central contractual instruments for developing energy projects. They look at how traditional PPA templates must evolve to adapt to the unique challenges of renewable energy projects, the promotion of energy transition goals, and to carbon-proof operations by implementing revised contractual terms. Their analysis is based on a series of case studies from both liberalised energy markets and nations in the process of liberalising energy markets.

Finally, the last article, authored by Diederik Kuipers, investigates the potential for the Netherlands to establish a national capacity mechanism to address local capacity shortages and support national energy transition.

We would like to thank all the authors for writing insightful contributions and so contributing to enriching the debate and the knowledge on legal reforms of electricity market design.

We hope that readers will enjoy the breadth and depth of the analyses provided and are certain that this special issue will nourish future discussions among scholars and policy makers in the years to come.

Prof. Catherine Banet and Prof. Joel Eisen, guest editors