a game theoretic approach for optimal time of use electricity pricing demand for electricity varies throughout the day increasing the average cost of power supply time of use tou pricing has been proposed as a demand side management dsm method to influence user demands in this paper we describe a game theoretic approach to optimize tou pricing strategies gt tou we propose models of costs to utility companies arising from user demand fluctuations and models of user satisfaction with the difference between the nominal demand and the actual consumption we design utility functions for the company and the users and obtain a nash equilibrium using backward induction in addition to a single user type scenario we also consider a scenario with multiple types of users each of whom responds differently to time dependent prices numerical examples show that our method is effective in leveling the user demand by setting optimal tou prices potentially decreasing costs for the utility companies and increasing user benefits an increase in social welfare measure indicates improved market efficiency through tou pricing

direct and indirect intervention schemas of government in the competition between green and non green supply chains abstract this study investigates equilibrium between green and non green product types under different government intervention schemas to this end we establish production competition models of a set of green and non green supply chains gscs and ngscs respectively gscs and ngscs are two echelon supply chains scs that present green and non green types of a product to a market respectively we consider two schemas of governmental intervention direct tariffs dts and tradable permits tps both with and without baselines this research seeks to evaluate how the gscs and ngscs respond to the dt or tp schemas to establish the best sc response strategies we formulate three level non linear programming problems for four possible governmental intervention scenarios we find that this problem is multidimensional with different system stakeholders including the government scs consumers and the environment in fact different schemas result in different satisfaction levels of stakeholders thus an appropriate schema can be selected by considering corresponding effects on the stakeholders the comprehensive evaluation of a case study on residential building construction scs yields significant managerial insights

optimal electricity market for wind power abstract this paper is about electricity market operation when looking from the wind power producers point of view the focus in on market time horizons how many hours there is between the closing and delivering the bids the case is for the nordic countries the nordpool electricity market and the danish wind power production real data from year 2001 was used to study the benefits of a more flexible market to wind power producer as a result of reduced regulating market costs from better hourly predictions to the market wind power producer would gain up to 8 more if the time between market bids and delivery was shortened from the day ahead elspot market hourly bids by noon for 12 36 h ahead an after sales market where surplus or deficit production could be traded 2 h before delivery could benefit the producer almost as much gaining 7

impacts of renewables obligation with recycling of the buy out fund tradable green certificate tgc or renewables obligation ro programs typically include a buy out option but only in the uk the buy out fund is redistributed back to the suppliers who have submitted the certificates we show that when the buy out fund is redistributed the supply of renewable energy responds positively to the market conditions and renewables target without it the buy out rate is equivalent to a maximum price however redistribution of the buy out fund may induce strategic behavior from producers who have market power we analyze the impacts of market power and integration on the supply of conventional and renewable energy under the ro program with the buy out fund recycled and devise some empirical tests to predict these impacts policy implications of this study are discussed with special reference to the new fit cfd system

collateral effects of liberalisation metering losses load profiles and cost settlement in spain s electricity system european energy markets have undergone a major transformation as they have advanced towards market liberalisation and it is vital that the details of these developments be carefully examined the success of liberalisation is based on smart regulation which has been capable of providing solutions to unforeseen events in the process our paper seeks to contribute to existing understanding of the unexpected and collateral effects of the liberalisation process in the power system by examining a natural experiment that occurred in spain in 2009 in that year the electricity supply by distribution system operators disappeared this change in retail market competition as we demonstrate in this paper has had an unexpected effect in terms of the system s balancing requirements we undertake a rigorous assessment of the economic consequences of this policy change for the whole system in terms of its impact on final electricity prices

the impact of systemic factors on the deployment of cooperative projects within renewable electricity production an international comparison while cooperative organizations created with the aim to initiate develop and operate renewable electricity re projects have received attention for their roles in the transition to a sustainable

renewable energy as a luxury a qualitative comparative analysis of the role of the economy in the eu s renewable energy transitions during the double crisis the european union eu faces a double crisis both economic and environmental which has brought into stark relief the question of whether climate change mitigation and economic growth are mutually exclusive is saving the environment a luxury reserved for wealthy countries with less affluent countries being too poor to be green we seek to address this important and timely question using fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis fsqca to analyse the causal relationship between economic growth and stability and the expansion of renewable electricity shares among the european union s eu 28 member states during the recent economic recession 2008 2013 our paper analyses the recent economic and financial crisis and its effects on sustainability transitions and establishes a new indicator for progress in renewable electricity transitions in the context of europe s 2020 targets it therefore extends the sustainability as a luxury debate to include renewable energy the analysis reveals an ambivalent picture of the role of wealth in renewable energy transitions ret in europe indeed driven by the eu s common renewable energy targets the findings suggest that rets are promoted both because and in spite of the means

investment risks in power generation a comparison of fossil fuel and renewable energy dominated markets abstract due to their high capital intensity weather dependent renewable energies res such as solar and wind face considerable investment risks in power markets in addition their uncertain production volumes also affect the investment risks of other plant types through the impact on power prices and residual demand increasing res shares thus potentially increase overall investment risks in power markets which many analysts consider to be a potential problem against this background this paper compares investment risks of different technologies in markets with increasing shares of variable res it further analyses how generation mixes are affected by these investment risks if the risks are evaluated on a stand alone basis or in a plant portfolio context of a private firm for this purpose a stylized investment and dispatch model is used to conduct monte carlo simulations from which risk measures are derived the results show that capital intensive res face the highest stand alone risks since their profits are most affected by the power price risk however the results further indicate that the stand alone risks of variable res decrease with their share in the market because of a negative correlation of output and price risk in addition res have a risk benefit in firm plant portfolios in terms of constituting a hedge against losses of fossil fuel plants this positive portfolio effect however rapidly decreases and becomes negative with increasing res shares in the market

reinterpreting a temporally aggregated consumption cap model recent literature has found that the coefficient of relative risk aversion estimated through consumption based asset pricing models is implausibly high even when the phenomenon of temporal aggregation is taken into account this article suggests that an ima 1 1 process be assumed as the generating mechanism of consumption instead of the standard random walk process in this case if the coefficient of the moving average component is negative the implied value of the coefficient of relative risk aversion can be reduced to plausible levels some empirical and theoretical support for the ima 1 1 hypothesis is also presented and discussed

a time series analysis of representative agent models of consumption andleisure choice under uncertainty this paper investigates empirically a model of aggregate consumption and leisure decisions in which utility from goods and leisure is nontime separable the nonseparability of preferences accommodates intertemporal substitution or complementarity of leisure and thereby affects the comovements in aggregate compensation and hours worked these cross relations are examined empirically using postwar monthly u s data on quantities real wages and the real return on the one month treasury bill the estimated values of the parameters governing preferences differ significantly from the values assumed in several studies of real business models several possible explanations of these discrepancies are discussed

the impact of renewable energy forecast errors on imbalance volumes and electricity spot prices abstract this paper contributes to the general consideration of whether a policy of incentivising system operators to improve the quality and market availability of forecasts for renewable energy outputs would be beneficial using data from the german electricity market we investigate the effect of wind and solar energy forecasts errors on imbalance volumes and subsequent spot electricity prices we use ordinary least squares regression quantile regression and autoregressive moving averages to identify these relationships using variables that have a quarter hourly data granularity the results show that higher wind and solar forecast errors increase the absolute values of imbalance volumes and that these can pass through into higher spot prices we find that wind forecast errors in germany impact spot prices more than solar forecasting errors policy incentives to improve the accuracy and availability of renewable energy forecasts by the system operators should therefore be encouraged

revenue prospects of photovoltaic in germany influence opportunities by variation of the plant orientation abstract the fixed feed in tariff under the renewable energy sources act in germany particularly encourages photovoltaic systems with the highest possible annual yield regardless of their temporal generation profile consequently a large part of the installed photovoltaic systems in germany have a southern orientation this paper examines how the optional german market premium scheme incentivizes the installation of photovoltaic systems with a more demand oriented electricity production for this purpose the measure energy yield elasticity of market value was developed and calculated by using historical market data the results show that some of the plant orientations that are deviating from the southern reference could have led to an increase in the market value in the last few years however these would not have been high enough to more than compensate for the financial losses that were formed as a result of the annual energy yield declines the merit order effect could change this situation in the future

adjustment costs durables and aggregate consumption abstract previous tests of the permanent income hypothesis pih have focused on either non durables or durables expenditures in isolation this paper studies consumer purchases of non durables and durables as the outcome of a single optimization problem it is shown that with non separability in utility the presence of adjustment costs of changing durables stocks may affect the time series properties of both components of expenditure an econometric test of the pih based on the model developed in the paper is both more efficient and less prone to bias than those in some previous studies however this test confirms earlier rejections of the pih in aggregate quarterly data

analysis of a wind farm s revenue in the british and spanish markets the composition of the revenue of a wind generation company wgenco under two different european markets is estimated in this paper the two markets under consideration british and spanish have a very different structure the spanish market is a pool based system while the british market encourages bilateral trading these markets have also different ways to provide incentives to wind farms and deal with the trading imbalances to which they are particularly susceptible given the variability of the resource all these conditions are explained and accounted for in our study of a hypothetical wgenco that can participate in the two markets real wind profiles two wind speed forecasting tools and market rules and conditions are used to estimate the wgenco s revenue over a period of 3 months our results show that the net revenue would have been fairly similar under the two market structures however the composition of this revenue shows significant differences in terms of renewable incentives and generation revenue

trading wind generation in short term energy markets even with state of the art forecasting methods the short term generation of wind farms cannot be predicted with a high degree of accuracy in a market situation these forecasting errors lead to commercial risk through imbalance costs when advance contracting this situation is one that needs to be addressed due to the steady increase in the amount of grid connected wind generation combined with the rise of deregulated market orientated electricity systems in the presence of imbalance prices and uncertain generation a method is required to determine the optimum level of contract energy to be sold on the advance markets such a method is presented here using markov probabilities for a wind farm and demonstrates substantial reductions in the imbalance costs the effect of market closure delays and forecasting window lengths are also shown

winds of change how high wind penetrations will affect investment incentives in the gb electricity sector abstract wind power is widely expected to expand rapidly in britain over the next decade large amounts of variable wind power on the system will increase market risks with prices more volatile and load factors for conventional thermal plant lower and more uncertain this extra market risk may discourage investment in generation capacity financial viability for thermal plant will be increasingly dependent on price spikes during periods of low wind increased price risk will also make investment in other forms of low carbon generation e g nuclear power more challenging a number of policies can reduce the extent to which generators are exposed to market risks and encourage investment however market risks play a fundamental role in shaping efficient investment and dispatch patterns in a liberalised market therefore measures to improve price signals and market functioning such as a stronger carbon price and developing more responsive demand are desirable however the scale of the investment challenge and increased risk mean targeted measures to reduce although not eliminate risk exposure such as capacity mechanisms and fixed price schemes may have increasing merit the challenge for policy is to strike the right balance between market and planned approaches

electricity prices large scale renewable integration and policy implications abstract this paper investigates the effects of intermittent solar and wind power generation on electricity price formation in germany we use daily data from 2010 to 2015 a period with profound modifications in the german electricity market the most notable being the rapid integration of photovoltaic and wind power sources as well as the phasing out of nuclear energy in the context of a garch in mean model we show that both solar and wind power granger cause electricity prices that solar power generation reduces the volatility of electricity prices by scaling down the use of peak load power plants and that wind power generation increases the volatility of electricity prices by challenging electricity market flexibility

high penetration wind generation impacts on spot prices in the australian national electricity market this paper explores wind power integration issues for the south australian sa region of the australian national electricity market nem by assessing the interaction of regional wind generation electricity demand and spot prices over 2 recent years of market operation sa s wind energy penetration has recently surpassed 20 and it has only a limited interconnection with other regions of the nem as such it represents an interesting example of high wind penetration in a gross wholesale pool market electricity industry our findings suggest that while electricity demand continues to have the greatest influence on spot prices in sa wind generation levels have become a significant secondary influence and there is an inverse relationship between wind generation and price no clear relationship between wind generation and demand has been identified although some periods of extremely high demand may coincide with lower wind generation periods of high wind output are associated with generally lower market prices and also appear to contribute to extreme negative price events the results highlight the importance of electricity market and renewable policy design in facilitating economically efficient high wind penetrations

seasonal fluctuations and the life cycle permanent income model of consumption this paper examines a new possible explanation for the recent rejections of the life cycle permanent income model of consumption the treatment of seasonal fluctuations the paper shows that when the seasonal fluctuations in consumption purchases are included in an analysis of the life cycle permanent income model there is no evidence in the aggregate data against the model the estimates of the parameters of agents utility functions obtained with seasonally unadjusted data are plausible and the unadjusted data do not reject the overidentifying restrictions on the model

minimization of imbalance cost trading wind power on the short term power market present power markets are designed for trading conventional generation for wind generation to participate in a short term energy market lengthy wind power production forecasts are required although wind speed forecasting techniques are constantly improving wind speed forecasts are never perfect and resulting wind power forecast errors imply imbalance costs for wind farm owners in this paper a new method for minimization of imbalance costs is developed stochastic programming is used to generate optimal wind power production bids for a short term power market a wind power forecast error is represented as a stochastic process the imbalance costs resulting from this strategy are then compared to the case when wind power production bids on a short term power market are based directly on a wind speed forecast

analysing future trends of renewable electricity in the eu in a low carbon context the aim of this paper is to analyse the situation and trends of electricity from renewable energy sources res e in the eu up to 2030 taking into account several drivers and barriers and different maturity levels for the renewable energy technologies the methodology is based on the results of simulation models providing insights on future outlooks complemented with an analysis of regulations and other drivers and barriers regarding the most mature renewable electricity technologies the main drivers will be public policies carbon prices and support schemes and the expected up ward trend in fossil fuel prices and the main barriers are related to grid access administrative procedures and the exhaustion of places with the best wind resource for those already commercial but expensive technologies the main driver is support schemes but not carbon prices allowing the exploitation of the large potential for investment cost reductions barriers are mostly related to their high investment costs finally for those technologies which are emerging and immature further technical improvements as a result of r d efforts will be needed and they cannot be expected to significantly penetrate the european electricity market until 2030

fixed feed in tariff versus premium a review of the current spanish system a b s t r a c t since 1998 the spanish government established a feed in system where res e generators could choose between two alternatives fixed feed in tariff and premium nowadays all res e 1 can be sold in the electricity market getting an additional premium except for solar photovoltaic one important novelty established in 2007 is a cap and floor system for facilities under the premium option the aim of this paper is to analyze and compare these two alternative options fixed fit and premiums which coexist at the same time in spain describe the evolution of both systems and evaluate its performance the introduction of this support system in spain led to very good results in terms of res e deployment the main advantage of the premium option is that it is a scheme integrated in the electricity market one disadvantage is that it can occasionally lead to overcompensation one way to try to avoid it is to set a cap value in order to evaluate the performance of this dual support system not only res e deployment has been assessed but also the policy stability the adequacy of res e production to the electricity demand pattern and the changes in the investors behaviour

irreversibility and consumer durables expenditures abstract this paper examines the implications of resale market imperfection on consumer durables expenditures the consumer optimization problem under resale market imperfection is formulated and solved numerically by dynamic programming algorithm the obtained decision rules of consumers reveal the slow upward and downward adjustments of durables stock the simulated aggregate durables expenditures with resale market imperfection exhibit substantial serial correlations similar to those found in actual durables expenditures time series the substantial serial correlations are found to be related to the pattern of the decision rules under resale market imperfections

costs and benefits of the renewable production of electricity in spain abstract the reduction of pollutant emissions and greenhouse gases as well as the strong energy dependence on fossil fuels gas and fuel oil have among other reasons led many countries in recent years to develop policies to promote and encourage the use of alternative sustainable clean and predictable sources of energy this paper presents an overview of the production of electricity from renewable sources pe res in spain and offers an outline of the current level of development of renewable energy it also reviews the current support system the costs of integrating renewable energy into the electric system as well as the effects of this type of energy on the electricity wholesale market price the gross domestic product gdp the environment human health and employment

nonconventional renewable energy governance in brazil lessons to learn from the german experience abstract this paper presents a comparative analysis of energy governance regarding nonconventional renewable energy sources ncres in brazil and germany brazil is a world leader in the use of conventional renewable energy sources such as hydro power while germany has been achieving outstanding results in fostering ncres the focus is on two critical issues the legal and regulatory framework and the institutions created to support the ncres market development the comparison shows that despite the very different energy situations and policy drivers valuables lessons can be extracted from the german experience the main lesson for brazil is to think ncres as a strategic opportunity to rely less on fossil fuel and large hydroelectric power plants to decentralize the electric power sector to use the huge solar biomass and wind power potential available in the country and to create a environment friendly ncres industry to this end three critical points were identified 1 the legal and regulatory framework should be improved 2 long term energy planning taking into account social economic and climate issues and 3 the current institutions supporting ncres in brazil should be upgraded and or new ones such as more specific energy agencies should be created

impact of renewables on electricity markets do support schemes matter abstract rising renewable shares influence electricity markets in several ways among others average market prices are reduced and price volatility increases therefore the missing money problem in energy only electricity markets is more likely to occur in systems with high renewable shares nevertheless renewables are supported in many countries due to their expected benefits the kind of support instrument can however influence the degree to which renewables influence the market while fixed feed in tariffs lead to higher market impacts more market oriented support schemes such as market premiums quota systems and capacity based payments decrease the extent to which markets are affected this paper analyzes the market impacts of different support schemes for this purpose a new module is added to an existing bottom up simulation model of the electricity market in addition different degrees of flexibility in the electricity system are considered a case study for germany is used to derive policy recommendations regarding the choice of support scheme

reducing the market impact of large shares of intermittent energy in denmark abstract the increasing prevalence of renewable and intermittent energy sources in the electricity system is creating new challenges for the interaction of the system in denmark high renewable shares have been achieved without great difficulty mainly due to the flexibility of the nearby nordic hydro power dominated system further increases in the share of renewable energy sources require that additional options are considered to facilitate integration with the lowest possible cost with large shares of intermittent energy the impact can be observed on wholesale prices giving both lower prices and higher volatility a lack of wind that causes high prices is rarely seen because long periods without wind are uncommon therefore we focus on the low price effects and the increased value of flexible demand options on the supply side there is an increase in the value of other flexible generation technologies and the attractiveness of additional interconnection capacity this paper also analyses options for increasing the flexibility of heat generation involving large and decentralized chp plants and heat generation based on electricity the incentives that the market provides for shifting demand and using electricity for heat production are discussed based on the variability of prices observed from 2006 to 2008

organization and functioning of liberalized electricity markets an overview of the dutch market abstract in this paper we examine the organization and the functioning of the dutch electricity market first we describe the organization of the dutch electricity supply chain and the role of the main market participants including the transmission system operator distribution system operators program responsible parties and metering companies we then describe the organization of financial trading and clearing mechanism of electricity through the organized futures exchange the european energy derivatives exchange and the spot market amsterdam power exchange which includes the day ahead market and intra day markets we also detail the functioning of the imbalance market and reserve capacity management in the netherlands through a set of numerical analysis we provide an exploratory analysis of the apx day ahead spot prices and the real time imbalance prices using electricity price data from 2002 to 2013 we observe the price spikes both in the day ahead and imbalance markets usually occur around 6 10 am and 5 7 pm we also observe that in the imbalance market system overages happen significantly more often than shortages pointing out that the market tends to buy more than what is demanded this could be explained by the risk attitude of the market participants in the imbalance market

considering risks in early stage investment planning for emission abatement technologies in large combustion plants fossil fuels will continue to be the most important energy source for electricity generation in most parts of the world for the next decades therefore emission abatement technologies in large combustion plants are an important measure to reduce the emission of pollutants and to lower the negative effects thereof for humans animals and the environment investment decisions for emission reduction measures are however facing various kinds of risks and uncertainties caused by political technological economic and legal influences the consideration of these risks in early stage investment planning is often complex yet important for investors this paper investigates the possibilities to consider risks and uncertainties in early stage investment and cost calculation methodologies of different complexity the real options analysis is presented as well as less complex methods such as monte carlo or sensitivity analyses that lower the calculation effort the application of a specifically developed risk portfolio is recommended before quantitatively investigating risks this portfolio helps to identify the most critical risks and to focus on them reducing again the calculation effort the presented approach is not only of interest for investors but also for policies especially if data is scarce or uncertainties exist regarding specific plant parameters or cost and price components the content of this paper is presented using the example of nitrogen oxide emission reduction measures it is however possible to transfer the results to other pollutants or technologies in a related context

temporal aggregation and hall s model of consumption behaviour a simple exercise of time series analysis shows that the presence of the phonomenon of temporal aggregation in quarterly consumption data can substantially alter the empirical inference about hall mocel of consumption behaviour this fact has received almost no attention in the econometric research in this field

assessing the value of wind generation in future carbon constrained electricity industries this paper employs a novel monte carlo based generation portfolio assessment tool to explore the implications of increasing wind penetration and carbon prices within future electricity generation portfolios under considerable uncertainty this tool combines optimal generation mix techniques with monte carlo simulation and portfolio analysis methods to determine expected overall generation costs associated cost uncertainty and expected co2 emissions for different possible generation portfolios a case study of an electricity industry with coal combined cycle gas turbines ccgt open cycle gas turbines ocgt and wind generation options that faces uncertain future fossil fuel prices carbon pricing electricity demand and plant construction costs is presented to illustrate some of the key issues associated with growing wind penetrations the case study uses half hourly demand and wind generation data from south eastern australia and regional estimates of new build plant costs and characteristics results suggest that although wind generation generally increases overall industry costs it reduces associated cost uncertainties and co2 emissions however there are some cases in which wind generation can reduce the overall costs of generation portfolios the extent to which wind penetration affects industry expected costs and uncertainties depends on the level of carbon price and the conventional technology mix in the portfolios

the real time price elasticity of electricity the real time price elasticity of electricity contains important information on the demand response of consumers to the volatility of peak prices despite the importance empirical estimates of the real time elasticity are hardly available this paper provides a quantification of the real time relationship between total peak demand and spot market prices we find a low value for the real time price elasticity which may partly be explained from the fact that not all users observe the spot market price if we correct for this phenomenon we find the elasticity to be fairly low for consumers currently active in the spot market if this conclusion applies to all users this would imply a limited scope for government intervention in supply security issues

volatility of power grids under real time pricing the paper proposes a framework for modeling and analysis of the dynamics of supply demand and clearing prices in power systems with real time retail pricing and information asymmetry characterized by passing on the real time wholesale electricity prices to the end consumers real time pricing creates a closed loop feedback system between the physical layer and the market layer of the system in the absence of a carefully designed control law such direct feedback can increase sensitivity and lower the system s robustness to uncertainty in demand and generation it is shown that price volatility can be characterized in terms of the system s maximal relative price elasticity defined as the maximal ratio of the generalized price elasticity of consumers to that of the producers as this ratio increases the system may become more volatile since new demand response technologies increase the price elasticity of demand and since increased penetration of distributed generation can also increase the uncertainty in price based demand response the theoretical findings suggest that the architecture under examination can potentially lead to increased volatility this study highlights the need for assessing architecture systematically and in advance in order to optimally strike the trade offs between volatility robustness and performance metrics such as economic efficiency and environmental efficiency

a capacity investment model of wind power with uncertain supply price under high penetration rate abstract with the rapid development of renewable energy the proportion of wind power in power supply has grown significantly also it influences the power price fluctuation since the marginal cost of wind power is almost zero the growth of wind power s penetration rate has led to a crowding out effect and challenged traditional power generation technology substantially reducing the power price in the market in perfect competition market the real time balance between supply and demand of power is regulated by the real time power price fluctuation so this paper models the intermittence of wind power as uncertain supply and develops a capacity investment model under the uncertainties of both supply and demand we introduce priority dispatch elasticity to describe the crowding out effect and take the power price to be endogenous in order to model the situation of high penetration rate we compare the optimal wind power capacity decision under the strategy of priority grid connection and abandoned power management our results show that optimal capacity investment is inversely related to priority dispatch elasticity under both strategies however the profit from power generation is always higher when adopting the abandoned power management strategy

exploiting the oil gdp effect to support renewables deployment the empirical evidence from a growing body of academic literature clearly suggests that oil price increases and volatility dampen macroeconomic growth by raising inflation and unemployment and by depressing the value of financial and other assets surprisingly this issue seems to have received little attention from energy policy makers in percentage terms the oil gdp effect is relatively small producing losses in the order of 0 5 of gdp for a 10 oil price increase in absolute terms however even a 10 oil price rise oil has risen at least 50 in the last year alone produces gdp losses that could they have been averted would significantly offset the cost of increased re deployment this paper draws on the empirical oil gdp literature which we summarize to show that i by displacing gas and oil renewable energy investments can help nations avoid costly macroeconomic losses produced by the oil gdp effect and ii that these avoided losses represent a significant external macroeconomic benefit of such investments we show that a 10 increase in re share avoids gdp losses in the range of 29 53 billion in the us and the eu 49 90 billion for oecd these avoided losses offset one fifth of the re investment needs projected by the erec and half the oecd investment projected by a g 8 task force for the us the figures further suggest that each additional kw of renewables on average avoids 250 450 in gdp losses a figure that varies across technologies as a function of annual capacity factors we approximate that the offset is worth 200 kw for wind and solar and 800 kw for geothermal and biomass while we focus only on renewables the gdp offset will apply in some measure to other non fossil technologies including energy efficiency dsm and nuclear the societal valuation of non fossil alternatives must reflect these avoided gdp losses whose benefit is not fully captured by private investors this said we fully recognize that wealth created in this manner does not directly form a pool of public funds that is easily earmarked for renewables support finally the oil gdp relationship has important implications for correctly estimating direct electricity generating cost for conventional and renewable alternatives and for developing more useful energy security and diversity concepts we also address these issues

pros and cons of exposing renewables to electricity market risks a comparison of the market integration approaches in germany spain and the uk abstract the article examines how renewable electricity res e producers are integrated into the electricity market under the support legislations and regulatory frameworks of germany spain and the uk focus is on wind power which faces the highest market integration challenge of all res e the analysis shows that the three countries follow contrasting approaches of exposing res e producers to the market risks of forward electricity markets balancing markets and system planning requirements risk exposure is highest in the uk and lowest in germany from a policy maker s perspective there is a trade off between a high risk and a low risk approach when res e face high market risks a higher level of financial support is required to stimulate res e development than in a low risk environment but the exposure to market risks may also give an incentive to make efficient use of the respective market thus limiting the indirect costs to society the special characteristics of wind energy however put natural limits to the response of wind power plants to market prices and locational price signals and will increasingly influence electricity markets and grid infrastructure these interdependencies should be recognised in the design of res e policies and market regulations

the reliability of u s gross national product two aspects of reliability revisions and errors need separate analysis revisions in gross national product gnp estimates are large in relation to the size of changes that matter to businesses and policy makers nevertheless preliminary estimates convey a lot of information about what the revised estimates will show errors in gnp estimates can plausibly be either larger or smaller than revisions the distinction between gathering errors and adjustment errors helps us understand a the absence of any measure of the size of gnp errors and b the ways in which national income statisticians go about reducing errors these ideas suggest several guidelines for improving gnp estimates

risk constrained profit maximization in day ahead electricity market the deregulation of the electricity industry has caused for the generation company genco the need of tools for measuring and managing the risk beyond the classical problem of generating unit scheduling in this paper a probabilistic framework for the problem of managing risk faced by gencos trading in day ahead energy market is proposed in particular a stochastic forecast of electricity price and the technical features of hydrothermal units are considered the approach is based on an optimization procedure for maximizing expected profits in the presence of risk constraints conditional value at risk for the distribution of daily profit is used as risk measure

the impact of european balancing rules on wind power economics and on short term bidding strategies abstract wind power represents a significant percentage of the european generation mix and this will increase to fulfill the renewable energy targets different balancing rules are applied to wind power among the countries for instance to what extent wind power producers wpps are responsible for the energy imbalances and how those imbalances are penalized this paper discusses those different rules and evaluates their effects on wpp bidding strategies to do so a quantitative analysis is presented for an offshore wind farm considering the differences in the balancing rules and prices of belgium denmark germany and the netherlands the quantitative approach consists of a stochastic optimization model that maximizes the profits of a wpp by trading in different markets day ahead and intraday and computes the final energy delivered the model considers uncertainties of most important parameters such as wind energy forecasts and prices at different time frames the results show that the imbalance pricing design and the allocation of balance responsibility significantly affect wpp revenues additionally wpps deviate differently from the expected energy depending on the balancing rules which can impact the system furthermore these balancing rules should be considered with other market regulations such as the design of support schemes

assessment of the cost associated with wind generation prediction errors in a liberalized electricity market in this paper a probabilistic methodology for estimating the energy costs in the market for wind generators associated with wind prediction errors is proposed generators must buy or sell energy production deviations due to prediction errors when they bid in day ahead or hour ahead energy markets the prediction error is modeled through a probability density function that represents the accuracy of the prediction model production hourly energy deviations and their associated trading costs are then calculated three study cases based on real wind power installations in spain are analyzed the three study cases show that the error prediction costs can reach as much as 10 of the total generator energy incomes

opportunity cost bidding by wind generators in forward markets analytical results wind generation must trade in forward electricity markets based on imperfect forecasts of its output and real time prices when the real time price differs for generators that are short and long the optimal forward strategy must be based on the opportunity costs of charges and payments in real time rather than a central estimate of wind output we present analytical results for wind s optimal forward strategy in the risk neutral case the optimal strategy is determined by the distribution of real time available wind capacity and the expected real time prices conditioned on the forward price and wind out turn our approach is simpler and more computationally efficient than formulations requiring specification of full joint distributions or a large set of scenarios informative closed form examples are derived for particular specifications of the wind price dependence structure in the usual case of uncertain forward prices the optimal bidding strategy generally consists of a bid curve for wind power rather than a fixed quantity bid a discussion of the risk averse problem is also provided an analytical result is available for aversion to production volume risk however we doubt whether wind owners should be risk averse with respect to the income from a single settlement period given the large number of such periods in a year

analysis of the imbalance price scheme in the spanish electricity market a wind power test case this work investigates the interaction between wind power and electricity markets the paper is focused on balancing markets pricing policies the proposal of a new imbalance price scheme is included and conveniently evaluated this proposed scheme tries to minimise the use of ancillary services to compensate for deviations in searching for a more efficient market design the effectiveness of imbalance prices as market signals is also examined and policy recommendations regarding imbalance services are discussed two test cases are included that analyse the participation of a wind power producer in the spanish electricity market using a stochastic optimisation strategy for this purpose the uncertainty of the variables is considered i e wind power production and prediction intraday and imbalance prices test cases were run with real data for 10 months and realistic results are presented along with a hypothetical test case the regulation of the imbalance prices may not be adequate for the spanish electricity market because an error drop is not sufficiently encouraged therefore we suggest the application of a new imbalance price scheme which includes an additional constraint the conclusions of this paper can be assumed to be general policy recommendations

do support systems for res e reduce eu ets driven electricity prices abstract support systems for electricity from renewable energy sources res e can reduce electricity prices which have also been influenced by a co2 emission trading scheme ets additional res e substitutes electricity from fossil fuels and thus co2 emissions are reduced the demand for emission reductions is lowered as a result the co2 price is also reduced consequently the wholesale price for electricity decreases however most res e support systems are financed via the electricity market which increases the retail electricity price an assessment for germany shows that retail electricity prices in the first trading period of the eu ets 2005 2007 are lowered by 2 6 euro mwh due to additional res e considering the complete eu the effect is substantially higher this paper describes the effect and the influence of different policy designs it develops an approach for assessing the effect and applies it for the case of germany and roughly estimates the effect for the eu

how renewables will change electricity markets in the next five years photovoltaic pv cells onshore wind turbines internet technologies and storage technologies have the potential to fundamentally change electricity markets in the years ahead photovoltaic cells are the most disruptive energy technology as they allow consumers of all sizes to produce power by themselves new actors in the power market can begin operating with a new bottom up control logic unsubsidised pv markets may start to take off in 2013 fuelling substantial growth where pv power is getting cheaper than grid or diesel backup electricity for commercial consumers managing loads and achieving a good match between power consumption and weather dependent power production will likely become a key issue this consumption production balance may trigger massive innovation and investment in energy management technologies involving different kinds of storage and controls increasing autonomy and flexibility of consumers challenges the top down control logic of traditional power supply and pushes for a more decentralised and multi layered system how rapidly and smoothly this transformation occurs depends to a large extent on the adaptation speed of the regulatory framework and on the ability of market players to develop appropriate business models the paper discusses conflicts of interest hurdles and drivers opportunities and traps for this perspective

distribution of costs induced by the integration of res e power this article focuses on the distribution of costs induced by the integration of electricity generation from renewable energy sources res e the treatment to distribute these costs on different market actors is crucial for its development for this purpose individual actors of electricity markets and several cost categories are identified according to the defined cost structure possible treatments to distribute the individual cost categories on different relevant actors are described finally an evaluation of the cost distribution treatments based on an economic analysis is given economic efficiency recommends that clearly attributable shallow grid connection as well as deep grid costs are charged to the corresponding res e producer and that the res e producers are also charged the regulating power costs however deep grid integration costs should be updated to reflect evolving scarcities also regulating power costs should reflect actual scarcity and thus be symmetric and based on real time prices taking into account the overall system imbalance moreover the time span between the closure of the spot market and actual delivery should be chosen as short as possible to enable accurate res e production forecasts

forecasting next day electricity prices by time series models in the framework of competitive electricity markets power producers and consumers need accurate price forecasting tools price forecasts embody crucial information for producers and consumers when planning bidding strategies in order to maximize their benefits and utilities respectively this paper provides two highly accurate yet efficient price forecasting tools based on time series analysis dynamic regression and transfer function models these techniques are explained and checked against each other results and discussions from real world case studies based on the electricity markets of mainland spain and california are presented

take or pay contracts for renewables deployment abstract renewables require support policies to deliver the european 20 target we discuss the requirements for least cost development and efficient operation and quantify how different schemes i allow for the development of a renewable energy technology portfolio ii reduce rent transfers to infra marginal technologies or better than marginal resource bases and iii minimise regulatory risk and thus capital costs for new projects long term take or pay contracts minimise regulatory uncertainty create appropriate incentives for location and operation allow for efficient system operation and seem compatible with european state aid we discuss how property rights legislation protects existing renewables investors and thus can ensure ongoing investment during a transition towards the new scheme

an international review of the implications of regulatory and electricity market structures on the emergence of grid scale electricity storage abstract energy storage systems ess have the potential to make a significant contribution to planning and operation practises in power systems while ess can be used to provide multiple benefits in the power sector widespread use has been restricted by high technology costs lack of deployment experience and the barriers and uncertainties caused by the present electricity market and regulatory structures that were designed for conventional electricity systems this paper reviews countries with high renewable targets and with significant current or planned ess deployments to ascertain the common problems affecting the use of ess on the grid and to establish where changes have been made or proposed to the electricity market and regulatory frameworks three major problems were identified as the undetermined asset class for ess and unbundled electricity system limiting stakeholders from determining and realising multiple ess benefits low electricity market liquidity and changing market conditions and a lack of common standards and procedures for evaluating connecting operating and maintaining ess based on the established barriers recommendations to update or create policies regulation and market arrangements to increase the viability and wider use of grid level ess are discussed the three key regulatory and policy recommendations were identified as an alignment of renewable policies to that of ess creating a separate asset class for ess and associated rules for regulated and competitive operations and standardising assessment frameworks connection and operational procedures for the use of ess finally three main electricity market recommendations include updating rules to support simultaneous ess operation across wholesale ancillary services and capacity markets updating market rules to allow compensation for flexible and highly accurate responsive demand and generation technologies such as ess and updating market ancillary services energy requirements

how to deal with negative power price spikes flexible voluntary curtailment agreements for large scale integration of wind for the large scale integration of electricity from renewable energy sources res e the german system seems to reach its limits in 2009 the electricity wholesale market experienced serious negative prices at times of high wind and low demand the feed in system in germany consists of a fixed feed in price a take off obligation and a res priority rule and in practice only very restrictive use of res e curtailment exactly the latter is the problem we argue that the overall performance of the system would improve seriously by lifting the restrictions on the use of voluntary curtailment agreements while retaining the priority rule as such since generators of res e can only improve under this system reform investment conditions improve leading to higher installed res e capacity this in turn implies that reduced wind output due to curtailment can actually be offset by higher wind output in all periods in which there is no problem

the stochastic behavior of durable and nondurable consumption the life cycle permanent income hypothesis suggests that optimization by consumers should cause marginal utility to approximate a random walk as a consequence purchases of nondurable goods should also approximately follow a random walk and purchases of durable goods should approximately follow a white noise process the univariate processes for nondurables and durables both appear to be random walks which would confirm the lc pih for nondurables and reject it for durables adjustment costs and nonseparability between durables and nondurables are then added to the specification of utility the resulting more general stochastic process is estimated and the data tend to support the existence of nonseparabilty but not adjustment costs while forecasts of durables are not fully informationally efficient they do about as well as do forecasts of nondurables the behavior of durable consumption purchases is shown to be consistent with the life cycle permanent income hypothesis copyright 1989 by mit press

promoting the market and system integration of renewable energies through premium schemes a case study of the german market premium abstract with the share of renewable energies within the electricity sector rising improving their market and system integration is of increasing importance by offering plant operators a premium on top of the electricity market price premium schemes represent an option to increase the alignment of renewable electricity production with market signals and have been implemented by several eu member states this paper examines the case study of the german market premium scheme adopted in 2012 building on an evaluation of early experiences we discuss whether the market premium contributes to the aims of market and or system integration effectiveness and what potential efficiency gains and additional costs of administering integration are associated with it efficiency while exposing renewables to price risks is not the scheme s purpose it has successfully increased participation in direct marketing however risks of overcompensating producers for marketing and balancing costs are high and the benefits of gradually leading plant operators towards the market are questionable incentives for demand oriented production are established but they seem insufficient particularly in the case of intermittent renewable energy sources to conclude we provide an outlook on alternative designs of premium schemes and discuss whether they seem better suited for addressing the challenges ahead

electricity market participation of wind farms the success story of the spanish pragmatism abstract in the last 10 years more than 15 gw of wind power asociacion empresarial eolica spanish wind energy association nota de prensa press release 17 de enero de 2008 http www aeeolica org doc np 080117 espana supera los 15000 mw eolicos pdf have been installed in spain of which more than 3 5 gw in 2007 furthermore plans are to reach 20 gw by 2010 and there are expectations of an installed capacity exceeding 40 gw by 2020 this article will present the innovative solutions for technical and economical integration that allow to reach such high level wind penetration objectives the system peaks at around 44 gw and is almost isolated it will be described how the regulation has evolved from a pure feed in tariff to a market premium option where technical and economic integration has been a priority today approximately 97 of installed wind capacity accesses the spanish wholesale electricity market market integration has been crucial sending the correct signals to participants to look for the optimum technical solutions technical improvements have come from both wind power producers fault ride through capabilities visibility and controllability of wind power power production forecasting reactive power control and the system operator specific control centre dedicated to renewable energy sources res new security analysis tools gaining technical confidence of wind capabilities

on variability of renewable energy and online power allocation as electric power system operators shift from conventional energy to renewable energy sources power distribution systems will experience increasing fluctuations in supply these fluctuations present the need to not only design online decentralized power allocation algorithms but also characterize how effective they are given fast changing consumer demand and generation in this paper we present an online decentralized dual descent od3 power allocation algorithm and determine in the worst case how much of observed social welfare can be explained by fluctuations in generation capacity and consumer demand convergence properties and performance guarantees of the od3 algorithm are analyzed by characterizing the difference between the online decision and the optimal decision we demonstrate validity and accuracy of the theoretical results in the paper through numerical experiments using real power generation data

the permanent income hypothesis and consumption durability analysis based on japanese panel data the permanent income hypothesis with durability of commodities is tested on a panel of about 2 000 japanese households for several commodity groups under static expectations about real interest rates and for some class of utility functions consumption which is a distributed lag function of current and past expenditure follows a martingale main empirical results are i the durability of commodities usually classified as services is substantial ii the hypothesis applies to about 85 percent of the population consisting of wage earners and iii income changes explain only a small fraction of the movements in expenditure

on the durability of non durable goods abstract using both monthly and quarterly data this paper shows that the durability rates of non durable goods and services are significantly greater than zero and in line with the prediction of the theory the common practice of testing consumption and consumption related models with the national income and product account category of non durables and services under the assumption of zero durability may thus be inappropriate

wind balancing costs in a power system with high wind penetration evidence from portugal abstract the growth of intermittent renewable power generation has been drawing attention to the design of balancing markets portugal is an interesting case study because wind generation already accounts for a high fraction of demand 23 in 2012 2016 but still there are no economic incentives for efficient wind forecasting wind balancing costs are passed to end consumers we analyze the evolution of the balancing market from 2012 to 2016 using actual market data we find wind balancing costs around 2 euros per mwh of generated energy one main reason for these low costs is the existence of a robust transmission grid which allows for the compensation of positive with negative wind imbalances across the system nevertheless the results suggest that final consumers could save several million euros per year if wind generators were made responsible for the economic cost of their imbalances in line with other european markets