In this paper we investigate the economic impacts of the European Emission Trading Scheme (EU-ETS) on the Italian electricity market by a power generation expansion model. In particular, we assume that generators make their capacity expansion decisions in a Cournot or in a perfect competition manner. This model is used to measure the effects of the EU-ETS Directives on electricity prices and demand, investments and generators' profits both in an oligopolistic and in a perfectly competitive organization of the power market. We adopt a technological representation of the energy market which is discretized into six geographical zones (North, Center-North, Center-South, South, Sicily, Sardinia) and five virtual poles (Monfalcone, Foggia, Brindisi, Rossano,... |