The New Era of Energy Transition: Challenges, Investment Opportunities and Technological Innovations.

• Author: Andriosopoulos, Kostas

It is an undeniable fact that we are witnessing a new evolving era in the global energy scenery. This non-stable situation poses serious questions, challenges and opportunities for countries, industries, professionals and academics. The objective of this special issue is to focus on the energy sector which should constantly adapt to global and local uncertain environments due to continuously changing geopolitical and social conditions, and to present new research results in the areas of decision-making mechanisms in the energy markets and energy pricing, smart networks design and management, environmental and energy efficiency analysis. In summary, the papers in this issue touch upon a range of central topics in the fields of energy and related markets, pointing at major existing and future energy and environmental challenges. All these stimulating views provide both policymakers and market participants with the utmost important research output for policy development and monitoring purposes.

Topics concerning European energy related issues, are the focus of some of the papers in the special issue. For example, E. Galariotis, I. Kalaitzoglou, K. Kosmidou, S. Papaefthimiou and S.I. Spyrou in "Could Market Making be Profitable in The European Carbon Market?" investigate when market making can be profitable in the European Carbon Futures market, by developing an order type selection rule, based solely on transaction level data. Results indicate that market orders are always less profitable than limit orders. In addition, market makers are expected to derive most of their profits in a low trading intensity environment, mainly due to higher liquidity commissions and a lower probability of dealing with better informed agents. In contrast, an unconditional limit order submission strategy from an off-floor trader should not be preferred, apart from a medium trading intensity environment, where information and liquidity premia adequately compensate them for execution and information risk.

In "Environmental and Energy Efficiency of EU Electricity Industry: An Almost Spatial Two Stages DEA Approach", S. Bigerna, M.C. D'Errico and P. Polinori analyze the relationship between the energy efficiency and the stringency of environmental and market regulations in the electricity sectors for 19 EU countries between 2006 and 2014. Their results suggest that market and environmental regulations have not unidirectional impacts on the three components of total factor productivity.

M. Balcilar, D. Roubaud and M. Shahbaz in their paper "The Impact of Energy Market Uncertainty Shocks on Energy Transition in Europe", study the effects of energy market uncertainty shocks on energy transition in the 28 European Union countries from 1990 to 2015, using annual frequency data. They...