**Preface to "Market Design for a High-Renewables Electricity System"**

Recent targets for tackling climate change proposed by most of the world's governments envisage dramatic cuts to greenhouse gas emissions as well as increases in the share of renewable energy in total gross energy production. However, despite these developments, the electricity sector will continue to bear the most significant burden stemming from economy-wide decarbonization which will in turn require high shares of renewable energy sources (RES) in the electricity system. The good news is that technological progress in wind and solar energy coupled with the increased use of interconnection, hydro resources, and new battery technologies, and the growing importance of smart meters and smart grids might make the high-proportion renewables electricity system a realistic future scenario. Increasing the share of RES will be challenging without substantial modifications to the current market design. This book provides assessments and evaluations of the emerging trends in electricity markets, with a focus on high-renewables electricity systems. Various issues are analyzed, such as wind and solar energy, interconnection, smart meters, smart grids of the future (including their social implications), or the peer-to-peer (P2P) electricity trading, which is closely connected to the principle of sharing economy. One of the main issues this volume attempts to address is how the market design for a high-renewables electricity system would be different from the classical post-liberalization market design. The studies published in this book contemplate the problem of how to encourage penetration of RES in electricity markets with the help of policies targeted at promoting renewables on the supply and demand sides to address the external benefits of renewables. Support for RES should integrate public preferences and these can be addressed by assessing willingness-to-pay (WTP) for renewable energy sources. Policies to promote renewables closely interact with other climate change mitigation efforts in energy sector such as energy efficiency improvements on demand and supply and therefore should be developed considering energy and climate targets.

> **Wadim Strielkowski** *Special Issue Editor*
