Addressing climate change requires full decarbonization of our economies. Whether this objective is achieved at least cost for society hinges on good policy design. In turn, this calls for a thorough understanding of firms’ and consumers’ incentives in the presence of asymmetric information, the determinants of strategic interaction, and the impact of market design and market structure on the intensity of competition. Industrial Economics thus has much to contribute towards a successful Energy Transition, while benefiting from the exciting research opportunities it brings. In this paper, I survey some of the recent developments in this area. My focus is on the power sector, and in particular, on the regulatory and market design challenges triggered by the expansion of intermittent renewables with almost zero marginal costs. I conclude with some questions that merit further research.

应对气候变化需要我们的经济完全脱碳。能否以最少的社会成本实现这一目标取决于良好的政策设计。反过来，这要求在信息不对称的情况下彻底了解企业和消费者的激励、战略互动的决定因素以及市场设计和市场结构对竞争强度的影响。因此，工业经济学可以为成功的能源转型做出很大贡献，同时受益于它带来的令人兴奋的研究机会。在本文中，我调查了该领域的一些最新发展。我的重点是电力部门，特别是由边际成本几乎为零的间歇性可再生能源的扩张引发的监管和市场设计挑战。