Australian electricity market power analysis under potential emission trading scheme

Abstract

Existence of market power in electricity markets has been revealed by extensive studies, however, the understanding of how environmental policies, e.g. emission trading scheme, impacts on the change of market power of generation companies (GENCOs) is at the inchoate stage. This paper, targeted at the study of Australia National Electricity Market, presents the Cournot market equilibrium model incorporating an emission trading model to study the potential changes of market power due to the introduction of the proposed Australian National Emission Trading Scheme (NETS) and further analyse the sensitivity of market power with increasing carbon price.