{"title":"Uncovering Wholesale Electricity Market Principles","authors":"Michael Panfil, Rama Zakaria","doi":"10.36640/mjeal.9.1.uncovering","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.36640/mjeal.9.1.uncovering","url":null,"abstract":"This paper examines, enunciates, and makes explicit a set of market principles historically relied upon by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to regulate wholesale electricity markets as required under the Federal Power Act (FPA). These identified competitive market principles are supported by policy and legal foundations that run through a myriad of FERC orders and court decisions. This paper seeks to make that history and those implicit market principles explicit by distilling and organizing Commission Orders and court decisions. It concludes that five market principles, each with multiple subprinciples, can be identified as elemental to how FERC understands and implements its statutory authority. Clear articulation of these foundational principles should help guide engaged entities as wholesale power markets continue to evolve.<br><br>Market Principle 1 states that wholesale market revenues should predominantly flow from well-designed energy and ancillary services markets. Market structures generally are found to be preferable to non-market structures. Moreover, energy and ancillary services markets, in relationship to wholesale capacity markets, are better able to efficiently promote a least-cost resource.<br><br>Market Principle 2 states that when altering market design, FERC and Independent System Operators (ISOs) should focus on only those services that are clearly needed, and ensure that any market design change does not unduly discriminate between resources. Market design changes focused on technology-neutral and well-defined granular services will help ensure that the design change does not lead to undue discrimination or preference that effectively favors certain resources. When such an impact still occurs, strong evidence showing that the rules are not unreasonable and arbitrary and that no non-unduly discriminatory and preferential alternative exists must support the change.<br><br>Market Principle 3 states that interventions that distort transparent and accurate pricing should be minimized. Out-of-market interventions, in particular, have the potential to distort price signals and undermine competition.<br><br>Market Principle 4 states that FERC’s just and reasonable standard strongly favors rate decreasing outcomes. Markets are premised on the economic presumption that competition reduces prices, in furtherance of the just and reasonable standard.<br><br>Market Principle 5 states that FERC and ISOs should facilitate and not undermine state public policy preferences. FERC and ISOs are not well-situated to serve as decision-makers in determining which state public policy preferences should be given effect. State public policy preferences that do not run afoul of FERC’s authority under the FPA should thus be given full effect. <br>","PeriodicalId":400187,"journal":{"name":"EnergyRN: Energy Economics (Topic)","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-02-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130399215","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Concentration Versus Diversification: A Spatial Deployment Approach to Improve the Economics of Wind Power","authors":"Leo Klie, R. Madlener","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3859611","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3859611","url":null,"abstract":"Previous studies on the economics of onshore wind parks in Germany found that geographic diversifi-cation results in no significant system costs savings. Furthermore, such diversification does not neces-sarily result in higher market values (Eising et al., 2020) or better merchant profitability (Klie and Madlener, 2020). Therefore, the question arises whether an alternative allocation (i.e. a concentration) rather than diversification of the German wind park fleet is more economical. In this paper, we compare the future (2030) market values, subsidy needs and total system costs of a more concentrated versus a more diversified allocation of onshore wind turbines in Germany. The results show that a concentration of turbines, in areas where the gap between market values and levelized costs of electricity is smallest (i.e. in the North of Germany), is more beneficial in terms of subsidy need and system costs. The analysis further shows that these areas are also more beneficial in terms of market values, when using system-friendly turbine configurations selected based on the same approach. To incentivize such a selection of areas and turbine configurations based on minimal gaps between market values and levelized costs an alternative renewables support scheme is presented, which favors such minimal gaps in its auctioning process.","PeriodicalId":400187,"journal":{"name":"EnergyRN: Energy Economics (Topic)","volume":"54 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"123364685","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
M. Castellini, F. Menoncin, M. Moretto, S. Vergalli
{"title":"Photovoltaic Smart Grids in the Prosumers Investment Decisions: A Real Option Model","authors":"M. Castellini, F. Menoncin, M. Moretto, S. Vergalli","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3522990","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3522990","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The digitization of power system represents one of the main instruments to achieve the target set by the European Union 2030 climate and energy Agenda of affordable energy transition. During the last years, such innovation process has been associated with the Smart Grid (SG) term. In this context, efficiency and flexibility of power systems are expected to increase and energy consumers to be active also on the production side, thus becoming prosumers (agents that both produce and consume energy). This paper provides a theoretical real option framework with the aim to model prosumers’ decision to invest in photovoltaic power plants, assuming that they are integrated in a SG. Our main focus is to study the optimal plant size and the optimal investment threshold, in a context where exchange of energy among prosumers is possible. The model was calibrated and tested with data from the Northern Italy energy market. Our findings show that the possibility of selling energy between prosumers, via the SG, increases investment values. This opportunity encourages prosumers to invest in a larger plant compared with the case without exchange possibility and that there is a positive relation between optimal size and (optimal) investment timing. The effect of uncertainty is in line with the literature, showing increasing value to defer with volatility. Our comparative statics stress the need for policies to push the PV efficiency.","PeriodicalId":400187,"journal":{"name":"EnergyRN: Energy Economics (Topic)","volume":"17 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-12-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121267569","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
J. Shrader, C. Lewis, G. McCormick, Isabelle Rabideau, Burcin Unel
{"title":"(Not So) Clean Peak Energy Standards","authors":"J. Shrader, C. Lewis, G. McCormick, Isabelle Rabideau, Burcin Unel","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3502271","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3502271","url":null,"abstract":"Growth in electricity storage has the potential to increase emissions from power generation. Concerns about this outcome are currently prompting many policies to address the issue. We study a particularly popular policy proposal called the “Clean Peak Standard” that incentivizes storage to discharge during periods of high electricity demand. The stated goal of the policy is to shift storage discharge to offset production from generators with high pollution emissions. We show that the policy is largely ineffective at achieving this emissions reduction goal. The policy reinforces existing incentives faced by storage operators, so it does not have a strong effect on discharging behavior. It is also unable to capture high-frequency changes in marginal operating emissions rates. Alternative policies, such as a carbon tax, are more effective at reducing the emissions increase caused by storage. Policymakers considering Clean Peak-style policies should instead consider these alternative policies.","PeriodicalId":400187,"journal":{"name":"EnergyRN: Energy Economics (Topic)","volume":"67 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-12-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126306685","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Volatility and Dispersion of Hourly Electricity Contracts on the Epex Spot Continuous Intraday Market","authors":"Rainer Baule, M. Naumann","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3480527","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3480527","url":null,"abstract":"In the past few years, the trading volume has steadily increased on the continuous intraday market of EPEX Spot, one of Europe's most important exchanges for short-term electricity trading. This is to a significant extent due to renewable energies in the form of solar and wind power, whereby interday trading is particularly well suited for the rebalancing of such energy production. We analyze the volatility and dispersion of individual hourly contracts, taking into account the particularities of the market, due to which the standard volatility measure from financial time series cannot be applied. We suggest and analyze five measures for the dispersion of intraday prices for a single contract. The different measures are similarly well suited for electricity contracts. We then identify fundamental drivers of price fluctuations. The relative share of wind in the overall mix, the traded volume, the absolute difference between the day-ahead auction price, and the volume-weighted intraday price increase dispersion. The traded volume between the German market and a foreign market decreases dispersion.","PeriodicalId":400187,"journal":{"name":"EnergyRN: Energy Economics (Topic)","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-11-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"132867134","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Risk-Based Portfolio Optimization in the Cryptocurrency World","authors":"Tobias Burggraf","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3454764","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3454764","url":null,"abstract":"This study explores the performance of seven state-of-the-art risk-based portfolio optimization strategies from the perspective of a cryptocurrency investor. Analyzing the inverse volatility, minimum variance, l2-norm constrained minimum variance, l2-norm constrained maximum decorrelation, maximum diversification and risk parity portfolio, we find that most strategies systematically outperform individual cryptocurrencies and the equally-weighted benchmark portfolio. Further, a bull and bear market performance comparison as well as tail, extreme risk, and diversification analyses reveal that these strategies provide significant downside risk reduction. The results are robust to using different estimation windows, rebalancing periods and covariance estimation methodologies. Finally, our empirical results indicate that the maximum decorrelation portfolio is the worst strategy in terms of risk-adjusted return, while the long-only minimum variance portfolio is the best performing strategy.","PeriodicalId":400187,"journal":{"name":"EnergyRN: Energy Economics (Topic)","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-10-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121154163","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Why the Scope of the Carbon Tax Matters – Evidence from the Swedish Residential Sector","authors":"Petrik Runst, Anita Thonipara","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3452019","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3452019","url":null,"abstract":"Sweden has gradually increased its carbon tax within the past 25 years and imposes the world’s highest tax on carbon dioxide emissions today. This paper examines the impact of the Swedish carbon tax on residential carbon emissions. We perform Difference-in-Differences (DiD) regressions and Synthetic Control Methods (SCM) in order to evaluate the causal impact of carbon taxation on carbon emissions in the residential sector. Both methods provide evidence for a causal effect of the carbon tax augmentation in the early 2000s on residential carbon emissions. We find that the scope of the reduction of residential carbon emissions due to the carbon tax augmentation ranges between 200 kg (when compared to other countries with a carbon tax of more than 20 Euros implemented) and 800 kg of CO2 per capita per year (when compared to countries without a carbon tax). Hence, the evidence points towards the effectiveness of carbon taxation in reducing residential CO2 emissions and, thus, mitigating climate change.","PeriodicalId":400187,"journal":{"name":"EnergyRN: Energy Economics (Topic)","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-09-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128337155","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Does Drawing Down the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve Help Stabilize Oil Prices?","authors":"L. Kilian, Xiaoqing Zhou","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3731017","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3731017","url":null,"abstract":"We study the efficacy of releases from the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) within the context of fully specified models of the global oil market that explicitly allow for storage demand as well as unanticipated changes in the SPR. Using novel identifying strategies and evaluation methods, we examine seven questions. First, how much have exogenous shocks to the SPR contributed to the variability in the real price of oil? Second, how much would a one-time exogenous reduction in the SPR lower the real price of oil? Third, are exogenous SPR releases partially or fully offset by increases in private sector oil inventories and how does this response affect the transmission of SPR policy shocks? Fourth, how effective were actual SPR policy interventions, consisting of sequences of exogenous changes in the SPR, at lowering the real price of oil? Fifth, are there differences in the effectiveness of SPR emergency drawdowns and SPR exchanges? Sixth, how much did the creation and expansion of the SPR contribute to higher real oil prices? Finally, how much would selling half of the oil in the SPR, as recently proposed by the White House, lower the global price of oil (and hence the U.S. price of motor gasoline) and how much fiscal revenue would it generate?","PeriodicalId":400187,"journal":{"name":"EnergyRN: Energy Economics (Topic)","volume":"176 4 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"120958468","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Greenium matters: greenhouse gas emissions, environmental disclosures, and stock prices","authors":"Alessi Lucia, Elisa Ossola, Roberto Panzica","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3452649","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3452649","url":null,"abstract":"This study provides evidence on the existence of a negative Greenium, i.e. a green risk premium, based on European individual stock returns and portfolios. By defining a green factor which is priced by the market, we offer a tool to assess a portfolio exposure to climate risk and hedge against it. We estimate that even in a rather benign scenario, there would be losses at the global level, including for European large banks, should they fail to price the Greenium. By halving the exposure to carbon-intensive sectors, losses would be reduced by 30%. These results call for the introduction of carbon stress tests for systemically important institutions.","PeriodicalId":400187,"journal":{"name":"EnergyRN: Energy Economics (Topic)","volume":"20 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"133741430","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Time-Varying Income and Price Elasticities for Energy Demand: Evidence from a Middle-Income (Primarily Non-OECD) Panel","authors":"Brantley Liddle, R. Smyth, Xibin Zhang","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3410511","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3410511","url":null,"abstract":"We estimate time-varying income and price elasticities for energy demand for a 26- country, middle-income (primarily non-OECD) balanced panel that spans 1996-2014. To do so, we employ a recently developed nonparametric local linear dummy estimation method that estimates the trend and coefficient functions in a highly non-linear way. We find that the price elasticity for energy demand is either insignificant or positive and small. While the income elasticity for energy demand behaves in a non-linear fashion over-time, it is always less than unity and is generally within 0.6-0.8. A GDP elasticity of less than one suggests that these middle-income countries are on the right-hand-side of an inverted-U energy intensity-GDP path that is consistent with the dematerialization process. Also, this finding suggests that energy intensity — but not energy consumption — in these countries will fall with economic growth. Hence, intensity-based targets may be met in a business-as-usual setting, but aggregate or per capita-based carbon emissions targets would likely require policy interventions.","PeriodicalId":400187,"journal":{"name":"EnergyRN: Energy Economics (Topic)","volume":"4 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-06-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"132551661","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}