Session 7 Flashcards
What are Energy-only markets?
The market arrangement corresponding to the Screening Curve Model:
- Prices can reach very high levels (no price cap)
- Scarcity prices serve as the incentive to invest in generation capacity
- No publicly arranged capacity mechanisms
Why might scarcity prices not realize? (3)
- If markets don’t clear at any price, load must be shed unvoluntarily.
- System blackout
- Difficult to distinguish scarcity prices from market power abuse
Missing money problem
+ solution
If scarcity prices do not materialize, investment incentives are insufficient –> firms will not invest
Solution: credible policy commitment
Result of price caps
+ effect on retailers
Missing markets: When demand exceeds supply, TSO will implement rolling blackouts
-> creates incentives for all retailers to underprocure energy needs
-> lower price cap exacerbates problem, as more retailers will delay energy purchase to spot market, increasing likelihood of demand > supply
Missing market problem
Without a price cap, retailers would buy forward contracts to hedge price risk.
Price cap limits the incentive (as there won’t be peak prices to hedge upfront); reduces incentive to procure through forwards -> retailers delay procurement to spot market.
Missing market problem: Too few long-term contracts, which are necessary to finance new investments.
Basic idea (nicht Funktionsweise!) of capacity mechanisms
“Replace” the uncertain scarcity price with a reliable capacity payment (to compensate AFC in advance)
Don’t confuse with operational reserves, even if both have capacity payments
Capacity remuneration mechanism (CRM): Design
- Determining the volume
- CRM contract design:
- how are agents incentivized to fulfill contractual commitments?
- how much revenue can agents earn outside of the CRM?
What are capacity remunieration mechanisms (CRM) there for?
Security of supply
Measures of reliability (3)
- LOLP: Loss of load probability: Probability that load exceeds generation at a moment in time
- LOLE: Loss of load expectation: Like LOLP over a time span (hours per year)
- Expected unserved energy (EUE): Accounting for the amount for which load exceeds generation (MWh per year)
How to set the right reliability standard?
- Trade-off
- Cost of new capacity vs cost of supply interruptions
- Maximize welfare: balance the marginal costs of new capacity with the marginal cost of load shedding - Cost of new entry (CONE) = Value of lost load (VOLL)
Target LOLE equation
+ How to determine/ define all parts of the equation?
Target LOLE (h) = CONE (eur/MW) / VOLL (eur/MWh)
Value of lost load (VOLL): based on surveys of consumers aksing the value place on interrupted supply over certain timeframes
Cost of new entry (CONE): based on techno-economic characteristics of available resources
Difference: Price instrument / Quantity instrument
Price instrument (capacity payment):
1. determine price (€/MW/year)
2. Market delivers according quantity (MW)
Quantity instrument (capacity market):
1. Determine firm capacity demand (MW)
2. Procurement auction resulting in capacity price (€/MW/year)
Why & how to use price and quantity instruments (combined)?
Why?
- using only one of both leads to highly volatile outcomes
Solution: Sloped demand curve (/price-quanitity hybrid)
Limited by capacity payment & demand but the reference price and target capacity vary and will find and intersection on the slope
Session 7, Slide 22
Difference between centralized and decentralized CRM (crucial!)
Centralized CRM:
- one central agent (TSO / regulator) identifies the capacity need and purchases on behalf of consumers
- TSO / regulator conducts and auction to procure the desired level of system capacity
- Problem: possible over-procurement
Decentralized CRM:
- retail suppliers are obligated to procure sufficient capacity to cover demand they serve (“supplier obligation”)
- problem: compliance
Functioning + design questions (5) of the classical CRM
Capacity providers receive a fixed payment (€/ MW/ year)
In turn, they commit to be available during scarcity periods.
Design questions:
1. Fulfillment
2. Eligibility (which technologies can participate, cross-border participation)
3. Energy price caps
4. who is buying (central vs. decentral)
5. Timing