IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ris/albaec/2018_012.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Imperfect Competition in Electricity Markets with Renewable Generation: The Role of Renewable Compensation Policies

Author

Listed:
  • Brown, David P.

    (University of Alberta, Department of Economics)

  • Eckert, Andrew

    (University of Alberta, Department of Economics)

Abstract

We analyze the effects of commonly employed renewable compensation policies on firm behavior in an imperfectly competitive market. We consider a model where firms compete for renewable capacity in a procurement auction prior to choosing their forward contract positions and competing in wholesale electricity markets. We focus on fixed and premium-priced feed-in tariff (FIT) compensation policies. We demonstrate that the renewable compensation policy impacts both the types of resources that win the renewable auction and subsequent market competition. While firms have stronger incentives to exercise market power in wholesale markets under a premium-priced FIT, they also have increased incentives to sign pro-competitive forward contracts. Despite these countervailing incentives, in net firms have stronger incentives to exercise market power under the premium-priced policy. We find conditions under which renewable resources that are more correlated with market demand are procured under a premium-priced design, while the opposite occurs under a fixed-priced policy. If the cost efficiencies associated with the "more valuable" renewable resources are sufficiently large, then welfare is larger under the premium-priced policy despite the stronger market power incentives in the wholesale market. Finally, we consider incumbent behavior in the renewable auction when competing against entrants with more valuable resources.

Suggested Citation

  • Brown, David P. & Eckert, Andrew, 2018. "Imperfect Competition in Electricity Markets with Renewable Generation: The Role of Renewable Compensation Policies," Working Papers 2018-12, University of Alberta, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:ris:albaec:2018_012
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://sites.ualberta.ca/~econwps/2018/wp2018-12.pdf
    File Function: Full text
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Frank A. Wolak, 2007. "Quantifying the supply-side benefits from forward contracting in wholesale electricity markets," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 22(7), pages 1179-1209.
    2. Genc, Talat S. & Reynolds, Stanley S., 2019. "Who should own a renewable technology? Ownership theory and an application," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 213-238.
    3. Butler, Lucy & Neuhoff, Karsten, 2008. "Comparison of feed-in tariff, quota and auction mechanisms to support wind power development," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 33(8), pages 1854-1867.
    4. James B. Bushnell & Erin T. Mansur & Celeste Saravia, 2008. "Vertical Arrangements, Market Structure, and Competition: An Analysis of Restructured US Electricity Markets," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(1), pages 237-266, March.
    5. Cludius, Johanna & Hermann, Hauke & Matthes, Felix Chr. & Graichen, Verena, 2014. "The merit order effect of wind and photovoltaic electricity generation in Germany 2008–2016: Estimation and distributional implications," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 302-313.
    6. Ritz, Robert A., 2016. "How does renewables competition affect forward contracting in electricity markets?," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 146(C), pages 135-139.
    7. Jehiel, Philippe & Moldovanu, Benny & Stacchetti, Ennio, 1996. "How (Not) to Sell Nuclear Weapons," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 86(4), pages 814-829, September.
    8. Frank Wolak, 2000. "An Empirical Analysis of the Impact of Hedge Contracts on Bidding Behavior in a Competitive Electricity Market," International Economic Journal, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 14(2), pages 1-39.
    9. Daron Acemoglu, Ali Kakhbod, and Asuman Ozdaglar, 2017. "Competition in Electricity Markets with Renewable Energy Sources," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(KAPSARC S).
    10. Würzburg, Klaas & Labandeira, Xavier & Linares, Pedro, 2013. "Renewable generation and electricity prices: Taking stock and new evidence for Germany and Austria," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 40(S1), pages 159-171.
    11. Stephen W. Salant & Sheldon Switzer & Robert J. Reynolds, 1983. "Losses From Horizontal Merger: The Effects of an Exogenous Change in Industry Structure on Cournot-Nash Equilibrium," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 98(2), pages 185-199.
    12. Andreas Voss and Reinhard Madlener, 2017. "Auction Schemes, Bidding Strategies and the Cost-Optimal Level of Promoting Renewable Electricity in Germany," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(KAPSARC S).
    13. Jorge Aseff & Hector Chade, 2008. "An optimal auction with identity‐dependent externalities," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 39(3), pages 731-746, September.
    14. Perry, Martin K & Porter, Robert H, 1985. "Oligopoly and the Incentive for Horizontal Merger," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 75(1), pages 219-227, March.
    15. Shrimali, Gireesh & Konda, Charith & Farooquee, Arsalan Ali, 2016. "Designing renewable energy auctions for India: Managing risks to maximize deployment and cost-effectiveness," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 97(C), pages 656-670.
    16. Couture, Toby & Gagnon, Yves, 2010. "An analysis of feed-in tariff remuneration models: Implications for renewable energy investment," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(2), pages 955-965, February.
    17. Becker, Bastian & Fischer, Doris, 2013. "Promoting renewable electricity generation in emerging economies," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 446-455.
    18. Nils‐Henrik M. von der Fehr & Stephanie Ropenus, 2017. "Renewable Energy Policy Instruments and Market Power," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 119(2), pages 312-345, April.
    19. Blaise Allaz & Jean-Luc Vila, 1993. "Cournot Competition, Forward Markets and Efficiency," Post-Print hal-00511806, HAL.
    20. Ciarreta, Aitor & Espinosa, Maria Paz & Pizarro-Irizar, Cristina, 2017. "Has renewable energy induced competitive behavior in the Spanish electricity market?," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 171-182.
    21. Antweiler, Werner, 2017. "A two-part feed-in-tariff for intermittent electricity generation," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(C), pages 458-470.
    22. Stefan Ambec & Claude Crampes, 2019. "Decarbonizing Electricity Generation with Intermittent Sources of Energy," Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, University of Chicago Press, vol. 6(6), pages 1105-1134.
    23. David P. Brown & Andrew Eckert, 2017. "Electricity market mergers with endogenous forward contracting," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 51(3), pages 269-310, June.
    24. Woo, C.K. & Moore, J. & Schneiderman, B. & Ho, T. & Olson, A. & Alagappan, L. & Chawla, K. & Toyama, N. & Zarnikau, J., 2016. "Merit-order effects of renewable energy and price divergence in California’s day-ahead and real-time electricity markets," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 299-312.
    25. Ferreira, José Luis, 2014. "Capacity precommitment, price competition and forward markets," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 122(2), pages 362-364.
    26. MURPHY, Frédéric & SMEERS, Yves, 2010. "On the impact of forward markets on investments in oligopolistic markets with reference to electricity," LIDAM Reprints CORE 2216, Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE).
    27. Lesser, Jonathan A. & Su, Xuejuan, 2008. "Design of an economically efficient feed-in tariff structure for renewable energy development," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 36(3), pages 981-990, March.
    28. Twomey, Paul & Neuhoff, Karsten, 2010. "Wind power and market power in competitive markets," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(7), pages 3198-3210, July.
    29. Frederic Murphy & Yves Smeers, 2010. "On the Impact of Forward Markets on Investments in Oligopolistic Markets with Reference to Electricity," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 58(3), pages 515-528, June.
    30. Ahmad Faruqui & Sanem Sergici, 2010. "Household response to dynamic pricing of electricity: a survey of 15 experiments," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 38(2), pages 193-225, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. David P. Brown & Andrew Eckert, 2018. "Analyzing the Impact of Electricity Market Structure Changes and Mergers: The Importance of Forward Commitments," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 52(1), pages 101-137, February.
    2. Darudi, Ali & Weigt, Hannes, 2019. "Renewable Support, Intermittency and Market Power: An Equilibrium Investment Approach," Working papers 2019/06, Faculty of Business and Economics - University of Basel.
    3. Bohland, Moritz & Schwenen, Sebastian, 2022. "Renewable support and strategic pricing in electricity markets," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    4. David P. Brown & Andrew Eckert, 2017. "Electricity market mergers with endogenous forward contracting," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 51(3), pages 269-310, June.
    5. Perez, Alex & Garcia-Rendon, John J., 2021. "Integration of non-conventional renewable energy and spot price of electricity: A counterfactual analysis for Colombia," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 167(C), pages 146-161.
    6. Nathan H. Miller & Joseph U. Podwol, 2020. "Forward Contracts, Market Structure and the Welfare Effects of Mergers," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 68(2), pages 364-407, June.
    7. David P. Brown & David E. M. Sappington, 2023. "Employing gain-sharing regulation to promote forward contracting in the electricity sector," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 63(1), pages 30-56, April.
    8. Fabra, Natalia, 2021. "The energy transition: An industrial economics perspective," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    9. Van Moer, Geert, 2019. "Electricity market competition when forward contracts are pairwise efficient," MPRA Paper 96660, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. John J. García Rendón & Alex F. Pérez-Libreros, 2019. "El precio spot de la electricidad y la inclusión de energía renovable no convencional: evidencia para Colombia," Documentos de Trabajo CIEF 17393, Universidad EAFIT.
    11. Desmond Cai & Anish Agarwal & Adam Wierman, 2020. "On the Inefficiency of Forward Markets in Leader–Follower Competition," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 68(1), pages 35-52, January.
    12. Moritz Bohland & Sebastian Schwenen, 2020. "Technology Policy and Market Structure: Evidence from the Power Sector," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 1856, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    13. David P. Brown & Andrew Eckert & Douglas Silveira, 2023. "Strategic interaction between wholesale and ancillary service markets," Competition and Regulation in Network Industries, , vol. 24(4), pages 174-198, December.
    14. David P. Brown & Andrew Eckert, 2022. "Pricing Patterns in Wholesale Electricity Markets: Unilateral Market Power or Coordinated Behavior?," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 70(1), pages 168-216, March.
    15. Li, Jinke & Liu, Guy & Shao, Jing, 2020. "Understanding the ROC transfer payment in the renewable obligation with the recycling mechanism in the United Kingdom," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(C).
    16. Dressler, Luisa, 2016. "Support schemes for renewable electricity in the European Union: Producer strategies and competition," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 186-196.
    17. Bell, William Paul & Wild, Phillip & Foster, John & Hewson, Michael, 2017. "Revitalising the wind power induced merit order effect to reduce wholesale and retail electricity prices in Australia," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 224-241.
    18. Carlos Suarez, 2021. "Mixed Oligopoly and Market Power Mitigation: Evidence from the Colombian Wholesale Electricity Market," IREA Working Papers 202101, University of Barcelona, Research Institute of Applied Economics, revised Jan 2021.
    19. Serra, Pablo, 2013. "Contract market power and its impact on the efficiency of the electricity sector," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 653-662.
    20. Holmberg, Pär & Tangerås, Thomas & Ahlqvist, Victor, 2018. "Central- versus Self-Dispatch in Electricity Markets," Working Paper Series 1257, Research Institute of Industrial Economics, revised 27 Mar 2019.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Electricity; Renewables; Market Power; Regulation; Procurement;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D43 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Oligopoly and Other Forms of Market Imperfection
    • L40 - Industrial Organization - - Antitrust Issues and Policies - - - General
    • L51 - Industrial Organization - - Regulation and Industrial Policy - - - Economics of Regulation
    • L94 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Transportation and Utilities - - - Electric Utilities
    • Q48 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Energy - - - Government Policy

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ris:albaec:2018_012. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Joseph Marchand (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/deualca.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.