--- title: Energy Economics & Markets description: Energy economics studies how oil, gas, power and renewables are priced and traded. You will learn electricity markets, commodity fundamentals, the energy transition and the policy forces shaping prices. category: finance-economics subcategory: economics-(social-lens) difficulty: beginner, intermediate, advanced url: /subject/economics-of-energy --- # Energy Economics & Markets Energy economics studies how oil, gas, power and renewables are priced and traded. You will learn electricity markets, commodity fundamentals, the energy transition and the policy forces shaping prices. ## Available Resources 1 Books • 1 Courses • 3 Websites • 3 Papers ## Websites ### 1. System Advisor Model (SAM) Free techno-economic modeling software from the U.S. national laboratory formerly called NREL. It simulates hourly output of PV, wind and battery projects and computes LCOE, NPV and PPA prices, letting users size systems and evaluate residential, commercial and utility-scale project finances. **Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://sam.nlr.gov/ **Tags:** techno-economic-modeling, lcoe, pv-system-simulation, wind-project-modeling, renewable-project-finance ### 2. Open Solar Contracts Initiative **Author:** IRENA / Terrawatt Initiative A free library of standardized contract templates for solar projects, covering the power purchase agreement, implementation agreement, equipment supply, financing, and operations and maintenance, with a guide explaining how each document allocates risk between the project company, buyer, and suppliers. **Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://opensolarcontracts.org **Tags:** project-finance, renewable-energy, power-purchase-agreements, contract-templates, solar ### 3. Decarbonization — the annual presentation **Author:** Nathaniel Bullard A yearly chartbook on the state of the energy transition from analyst Nat Bullard, tracking investment flows, technology cost curves, deployment volumes and emissions trends across sectors so readers can see where the transition actually stands. **Difficulty:** Advanced | **Language:** English | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://www.nathanielbullard.com/presentations **Tags:** energy transition, capital deployment ## Books ### 1. Energy Efficiency: Principles and Practices **Author:** Penni McLean-Conner A 212-page PennWell guide for utilities and government agencies on designing and running energy efficiency and demand-side management programs. Readers understand how such programs reduce peak electricity demand, how they engage customers, and how their savings are evaluated. **Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Paid **Link:** https://www.amazon.com/dp/1593701780?tag=edmonddante07-20 **Tags:** energy-efficiency, demand-side-management, demand-response, utility-programs, energy-policy ## Papers ### 1. Tracking SDG7: The Energy Progress Report 2026 **Author:** IEA, IRENA, UN DESA, World Bank, WHO The annual multi-agency stock-take on progress toward universal energy access, reporting country-level data on electricity access, clean cooking, renewables share, energy intensity and international finance flows. Useful as a source for how many people still lack modern energy. **Difficulty:** Beginner | **Language:** English | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://www.iea.org/reports/tracking-sdg7-the-energy-progress-report-2026 **Tags:** energy access, energy poverty ### 2. Underpriced and Overused: Fossil Fuel Subsidies Data 2025 Update **Author:** Simon Black, Weronika Celniak, Alberto Garcia Huitron, Ian Parry, Paulina Schulz Antipa, Nate Vernon-Lin IMF working paper estimating global fossil fuel subsidies, splitting explicit price gaps from implicit costs of untaxed pollution and congestion. Comes with a country-by-country dataset, so you can see which fuels and which economies carry the largest gaps. **Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://www.imf.org/en/publications/wp/issues/2025/12/20/underpriced-and-overused-fossil-fuel-subsidies-data-2025-update-572729 **Tags:** fossil-fuel-subsidies, externalities, carbon-pricing, energy-pricing, fiscal-policy ### 3. Global Warming and the Green Paradox: A Review of Adverse Effects of Climate Policies **Author:** Frederick van der Ploeg, Cees Withagen A review distinguishing the weak green paradox, where emissions merely shift forward in time, from the strong version where cumulative damage rises, and identifying the extraction costs, reserve heterogeneity and tax designs that neutralise the effect. **Difficulty:** Advanced | **Language:** English | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:e9a1d7df-ebc1-4a04-a80a-dee639303080 **Tags:** green-paradox, carbon-tax, climate-policy, exhaustible-resources, fossil-fuel-extraction ## Courses ### 1. Cours des Mines ParisTech — Energy, Climate and the Economy (8 lectures) **Author:** Jean-Marc Jancovici The physical coupling between energy supply and GDP, taught as actual graduate coursework. The best available answer to 'why doesn't the economy just decouple from energy'. **Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLmH3T-lNp49XPjIbx3jMqHVjxgFZi9bA1 **Tags:** energy and GDP, energy return, carbon accounting --- *This content is part of Dantes.io - Your Treasure Map to Knowledge* *Curated by humans at Dantes.io. Personal study use welcome; republishing this curation requires permission (team@dantes.io).* View this page online: https://dantes.io/subject/economics-of-energy