The final outcome will thus depend on a kind of race between VRE deployment and efforts to render the system more flexible. Again, as long as VREs are financed out of the market, the establishment of a normative reference framework that would allow distinguishing between welfarerelevant technical externalities and acceptable pecuniary externalities is impossible. While some inefficiencies, e.g. the insulation of VREs from the market prices that they themselves influence heavily, can be clearly indicated, others are more difficult to assess.