With the growing role played by wind energy, sites for the construction of wind farms are becoming a sought-after resource, especially in relation to off-shore wind. Where wind farm operators may previously have asked for subsidies, they are now prepared to pay for access to possible sites.

National governments resort to auctions for the allocation of these scarce public resources. The design of such processes has to take account of the specific needs of operators and the nature of the sites offered and to ensure that newly constructed capacity can be integrated into the transmission grid.

We were commissioned by the Netherlands Enterprise Agency – a part of the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Policy – to look at options for auctioning multiple permits for the construction of off-shore wind farms. The report setting out our recommendations can be found here.

In addition to the direct effects through the remedies imposed, competition law enforcement can also affect the behaviour of firms in adjacent sectors (and more generally) by increasing awareness of competition rules and changing views of the likelihood of anticompetitive behaviour being detected and sanctioned.

We looked at the deterrent effects of specific cases by surveying businesses in adjacent sectors to find out how the enforcement action would affect their behaviour. Our findings indicate that the indirect benefits from deterring anticompetitive behaviour outweigh the direct benefits from the interventions, often by an order of magnitude.

The report is available from the CMA website and can also be downloaded here.

Good connectivity is seen as a major contributor to economic growth and a source of wider benefits from improved home-working opportunities and greater participation in the development of digital services.

There are reasons to expect that measures to increase rural broadband speeds could be particularly effective in Northern Ireland, given the relatively poor availability of high-speed broadband compared with both urban areas in Northern Ireland and other rural areas in the rest of the United Kingdom.

In a report commissioned by BT, we have estimated the benefits of a proposed £150m investment in extending ultrafast fibre broadband to rural areas of Northern Ireland at around £1.2 billion, a return of £8 for every £1 invested. Increased employment would be the largest source of benefit, but there would also be a significant contribution to productivity growth.

5G promises not just greater bandwidth, but also lower latency, lower power consumption and greater reliability. It offers the opportunity for new deployment models and innovative services, substantially expanding the traditional mobile ecosystem.

The regulatory framework that applies to 5G may help these promises turn into sustainable business cases, but it may also be a hindrance. It is therefore important for regulators to understand the key technologies and services that may emerge and the obstacles and enablers for success.

This report, prepared together with Axon Partners Group for the Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications (BEREC), looks at the implications of 5G deployment for market structure, market dynamics, business models, value chains and competition in telecommunications and adjacent markets (e.g. automotive, manufacturing, agriculture).

The study can be downloaded here.

Innovation in broadcasting creates new experiences for viewers and listeners, helps broadcasters to save costs or develop further revenue opportunities and can generate spill-over benefits for the wider audio-visual sector. Investing in applied research and development is an important part of the BBC’s remit and accounts for an annual spend of around £20m.

We examined the benefits of the BBC’s R&D activities using bottom-up microeconomic techniques on a selection of the BBC’s projects. Based on these case studies, we estimated the benefits of the BBC’s R&D investment across its entire project portfolio. Our conservative estimate suggests that every pound spent by the R&D department creates benefits in the range of £5 – £9. The report is available here.

Telecoms liberalisation in most of Europe has been a success story, with facilities-based competition extending further and further throughout the network. As competition has spread, regulation has been pulled back. With the growing need for upgrading access networks, arguments that regulatory obligations on incumbent telecommunications operators to provide access to
their network infrastructure discourages the much needed investment have become louder.

In this report for the Internet Economy Foundation we look at the importance of pro-competitive access regulation in providing the right incentives for investment in next generation access networks without losing the benefits from competition supported by access to bottleneck infrastructure.  The report can be downloaded here.