Emergency management in the Swedish electricity market: The need to challenge the responsibility gap

A secure energy supply is a basic need of society. Along with electricity market deregulation, a responsibility gap has arisen, where private energy companies lack economic incentives to invest in an electricity distribution grid that is secured to the level desired by society. This article discusses the emergency management strategies of municipal authorities for securing the electricity supply, according to a networked, or “governance”, control and direction structure, and how this influences the relationship between electricity companies and Swedish municipalities. The Swedish electricity system has traditionally developed in a monopoly context. Since electricity market deregulation, the responsibility for electricity supply security has become unclear; field studies of Swedish municipalities indicate that all actors still seem to be seeking to find their proper roles in the deregulated market. Municipalities still expect to exercise influence over private energy company decisions regarding prioritization of emergency power deliveries. Energy companies vacillate between emphasizing their need to regard economic factors and their sense of responsibility for providing a secure electricity supply to vital municipal functions (even though municipalities may lack contracts specifying this).     

The Swedish wood fuel market

In Sweden, wood fuels are traditionally used in the Swedish forest products industry and for heating of single-family houses. More recently they are also become established as an energy source for district heating and electricity production. Energy policy, especially the energy taxation system, has favoured wood fuels and other biofuels, mainly for environmental reasons. There is now an established commercial market for wood fuels in the district heating sector, which amounts to 45 PJ and is growing 20 per cent annually. Price levels have been stable in current prices for a decade, mainly because of good access to wood fuels. Price levels are dominated by production costs on a market that is largely governed by the buyer.It is expected that the use of wood fuels will increase in Sweden in the future, which will push a further development of this sector on the market and bring about technological changes in the area.     

The market for wireless electricity: The case of India

A wireless revolution has transformed telecoms in India and in other emerging markets. The electricity market, on the other hand, remains underdeveloped. We define Wireless Electricity as renewable energy produced within a few hundred meters of the point of consumption. A wireless revolution in electricity would solve the problem of electricity deficit, empower people at the bottom of the pyramid and mitigate the environmental impact of bringing hundreds of millions out of poverty as the Indian economy grows. Renewables are technically proven and economically viable in certain situations, but their use remains peripheral. The stark difference in the diffusion patterns in telecoms and electricity has been ignored by leaders in government, business and academics. We present common frameworks to explain the different directions of reform in telecoms and electricity. We explain some of the dynamics which prevent the diffusion of Wireless Electricity. We use a causal loop diagram to explain the status quo in the off-grid electricity market and propose changes which will lead to the formation of a market for Wireless Electricity. India has the entrepreneurial talent to develop this market—and the largest number of potential customers. The world will benefit as a result.     

The investment criteria of the Swedish electricity industry

This article examines the investment criteria used by the Swedish power industry. The so-called combined criterion has several practical advantages. One is that it facilitates consideration of the value of an increase in the reliability of the electric power system with respect to energy and to capacity simultaneously. Another is that it can be used to evaluate expansion and replacement investments as well as investments in pure reserves. The dimensioning of energy reserves is also discussed. The Swedish power industry use an evaluation of the costs of an energy shortage that is the same regardless of the size of the shortage. The effects of assuming that the costs of a shortage increase with the size of the shortage are studied and estimates of the optimal size of the energy reserve have benn made under alternative assumptions. These estimates indicate that the Swedish energy reserve may be excessive at present.     

Green energy in Europe : The surprising green electricity market in UK

Just over six months ago, views of experts on the green electricity market in the United Kingdom were when not pessimistic, rather cautious. Then, with the summer of 2001 blew a wind of change. Juice, GreenPlan, Green Tariff and many more new green energy products flooded the market supported by massive marketing campaigns using all possible media in the United Kingdom. Laetitia Ouillet, www.greenprices.com focuses on the latest developments of the green electricity markets in the United Kingdom over the past six months.     

中国实施电力市场的可行性探讨

介绍了中国电力市场的发展过程和现状,探讨了中国实施电力市场的可能性,通过国内外电力体制发展趋势的观察,总结出了我国电力市场未来发展的三个阶段。     

The politics of regulation in the Turkish electricity market

Turkey began reforming the electricity market in 2001. The regulatory reform aimed to liberalize the market. However, the institutional and political structure was not ready for creating an efficiently working competition. The independent regulator did not have both experience and will to direct the industry to a more competitive environment. Currently, the reform has slowed down and political preferences drive the industry. This paper studies the reasons for the slowdown in the reform efforts by focusing on the relationships between the government, judiciary and the independent regulator. We conclude that strategic behaviors of players in the market, including the judiciary, the government, and the regulator, have made the introduction of competition to the market more costly.     

On the evaluation of market power and market dominance—The Nordic electricity market

This paper studies different concentration and dominance measures using structural indexes used to initially screen the competitive situation in a market. The Nordic and Swedish electricity markets are used as the empirical cases. Market concentration issues in the Nordic electricity market in general and in Sweden in particular have been, at least in initial screenings, approached by the Herfindahl–Hirschman Index (HHI). This article uses an alternative measure to HHI, which is based on market shares of the two largest firms in the market. The results shows that only the Swedish wholesale market has a firm that can be regarded as dominant, but only during very short periods. The results from a hypothetical merger between the second and third largest company in the Swedish wholesale market shows that when the dominant position of the largest firm is reduced, by increasing the size of the second largest firm, the threshold value indicates that competition actually will increase (contradicting to the HHI).     

Investing in vertical integration: electricity retail market participation

Electricity industries are frequently characterised by a high degree of vertical integration. We explore the option for a generator to enlarge its participation in the retail market, and show that the firm will choose to delay if market demand is too high or low. In the former case, high wholesale prices may make fixed price retail customers unattractive, while in the latter, too little revenue is earned to justify the option's expense. Increased volatility can, under some circumstances, lower the value of the option, contrary to conventional real options theory. Firms expand their retail positions more aggressively in concentrated markets, vertically integrated markets, and markets where financial hedging is prevalent.     

The strategic robustness of oligopoly electricity market models

Modeling market power in electricity markets is fraught as agents compete in prices but interact daily. In deciding what supply to offer, generators need to form judgements on the supplies chosen by rivals and hence the residual demand they face. Many markets are found to have prices above competitive levels, which could be explained by Nash-Cournot behaviour or marking-up above variable costs, but these strategies may not be robust against sophisticated deviants. This paper demonstrates that (1) the Nash choice of the optimal proportional mark-up on marginal costs yields lower prices and profits than Cournot behaviour but higher prices and profits than the optimum fixed mark-up; (2) such mark-up models are robust to single firm Nash deviations, but not against more sophisticated deviations in the deterministic case, nor under demand uncertainty. Proportional mark-up models emerge as the most robust and hence preferred modeling approach.     

Concentration in the European electricity industry: The internal market as solution?

This article offers an analysis of the present competitive and regulatory framework of the European electricity sector and the results achieved with the liberalisation process. Considering the reactions of incumbents to the liberalisation, the focus in this work is mainly on the problem of market concentration in the sector. The new trends toward the creation of “national champions” as well as recent mergers between gas suppliers and electricity producers raise serious concerns about abuses of market power and risk of future collusion. In particular, the strategic linkage of existing markets and the expansion into new ones are analyzed in the light of the multimarket contact theory. Considering investment in interconnection among Member States, the internal market issue is investigated as a solution to the “risks” coming from liberalisation.     

Convergence bids and market manipulation in the California electricity market

Financial instruments are designed to improve the efficiency of a physical market in theory. In practice, underlying physical relationships may prevent financial instruments from working as intended. This paper analyzes the relationship between two financial instruments in electricity markets: convergence bidding and congestion revenue rights. Convergence bids allow participants to trade virtual power, whereas congestion revenue rights capture the value of congestion on a transmission line. Both instruments were introduced to solve inefficiencies, however the interaction of these two instruments provides incentives for manipulation. In this work I test whether the financial instruments are being used as intended. The results show that electricity market participants are more likely to hold unprofitable convergence bids on a node where the convergence bid can benefit the value of the congestion revenue rights held at that node. This type of uneconomic convergence bid is consistent with manipulative behavior. I then perform a back of the envelope calculation that shows these potentially manipulative convergence bids create inefficiencies in the market.     

The impact of climate change on the electricity market: A review

Climate change will impact electricity markets through both electricity demand and supply. This paper reviews the research on this topic. Whereas there is much that remains unknown or uncertain, research over the last few years has significantly advanced our knowledge. In general, higher temperatures are expected to raise electricity demand for cooling, decrease demand for heating, and to reduce electricity production from thermal power plants. The effect of climate change on the supply of electricity from non-thermal sources shows great geographical variability due to differences in expected changes to temperature and precipitation. Whereas the research frontier has advanced significantly in the last few years, there still remains a significant need for more research in order to better understand the effects of climate change on the electricity market. Four significant gaps in the current research are regional studies of demand side impacts for Africa, Asia, the Caribbean and Latin America, the effects of extreme weather events on electricity generation, transmission and demand, changes to the adoption rate of air conditioning, and finally, our understanding of the sensitivity of thermal power supply to changes in air and water temperatures.     

The electricity market potential of geothermal energy: A regionally aggregative analysis

This research presents estimates of potential regional electric market shares for geothermally produced electricity in the Rocky Mountain Basin and Range Region of the western United States. A model is described which simulates the exploration for and the discovery and harnessing of electric grade geothermal energy resources during the period 1986–1995. Concurrently, electricity demand forecasts are prepared for the same period using a set of estimated electricity demand models. The two forecasts are then integrated to calculate regional electric market shares for a set of alternate electricity price futures.     

Burning peat in Ireland: An electricity market dispatch perspective

This paper examines peat power production in Ireland under the three pillars of energy policy—security, competitiveness and environment. Peat contributes to energy security—as an indigenous fuel, it reduces dependency on imports. During a period of low capacity margins, the operation of the peat plants is useful from a system security perspective. Peat generation is being financially supported by consumers through an electricity levy. The fuel also has high carbon intensity. It is not politically viable to consider peat on equal economic criteria to other plant types because of history and location. This paper reviews electricity generation through combustion of peat in Ireland, and quantifies the costs of supporting peat utilising economic dispatch tools, finding the subsidy is not insignificant from a cost or carbon perspective. It shows that while peat is beneficial for one pillar of energy policy (security), the current usage of peat is not optimal from a competitiveness or environmental perspective. By switching from the current ‘must-run’ mode of operation for peat to the ‘dispatched’ mode used for the other generation, significant societal savings (in the range €21 m per annum) can be achieved, as well as reducing system emissions by approximately 5% per year.     

Bidding behavior in the Chilean electricity market

Contracts in power markets are usually obscure. From recently public auctions of long-term supply contracts we can obtain information on how contract prices are determined. To understand generators' bidding behavior, this paper examines the Chilean experience from 2006 to 2011. Using a divisible good auction model we provide a theoretical framework that explains bidding behavior in terms of expected spot prices and contracting positions. Empirical estimations indicate heterogeneity in the cost of over-contracting depending on incumbency, bringing evidence of significant barriers to entry.     

Transmission-constrained oligopoly in the Japanese electricity market

We simulate the Japanese wholesale electricity market as a transmission-constrained Cournot market using a linear complementarity approach. First, we investigate the effects of upgrading the bottleneck transmission line between the eastern and western regions, focusing on the mitigation of transmission congestion. Although increasing the bottleneck capacity would lead to welfare gains, they might not be substantial particularly when transmission capacity costs are taken into account. Second, we examine the effects of splitting the largest electric power company, which is located in the eastern region, focusing on the mitigation of market power. Splitting the largest company into two companies would lead to a 25% reduction in the eastern price, and a 50% reduction in deadweight loss. The divestiture of the largest company would have a significant effect of mitigating market power in the Japanese electricity market.     

Renewable energy in a diverse electricity market

A diverse, liberalised electricity market has issues that cut across it, relevant to all generators including those using renewable energy resources. A trade association can play a useful role.     

Investment incentives in the Korean electricity market

This paper develops a model-based analysis of the effects of various capacity incentive systems on new investment in the Korean electricity market. The restructuring process in Korea allocated power generation to six firms, competing within a wholesale market, albeit strictly on a cost basis. Because of this cost-based pool, capacity payments were also introduced to encourage new investment. However, it is an open question whether the current fixed capacity payment scheme is enough to secure resource adequacy, and consideration is being given to alternative mechanisms such as the use of LOLP. Using a detailed market simulation model, based on system dynamics, we compare these approaches in terms of how they may influence the investors’ decisions and thereby determine the system reserve margin. The simulation results suggest that there may be serious problems in staying with the current fixed capacity payments in order to achieve resource adequacy. In contrast, an LOLP-based capacity mechanism may, in the longer term, increase the reserve margin compared with a fixed capacity payment. More generally, this paper indicates how crucial the effective modeling of the investment behavior of the independent power producers is for adequate policy support, even if they only constitute a fringe in a substantially centrally influenced market.     

The futures and forward price differential in the Nordic electricity market

This note investigates price differentials between electricity forwards and portfolios of short-term futures with identical delivery periods at the Nordic Power Exchange (Nord Pool). Since both contracts are traded at the same exchange, there is no influence of, for example, different market microstructure and default risk when examining the effect of the marking-to-market of futures on the price differential. Although the prices of the futures portfolios are, on average, below the corresponding forward prices, these price differentials are, on average, not statistically significant and not economically significant when taking transaction costs into account. Given the characteristics of the electricity contracts under observation, this is consistent with the predictions of the Cox et al. (1981) model and indicates efficient pricing in the Nord Pool forward market in contrast to previous results.