IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/eneeco/v100y2021ics0140988321002607.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Decreasing market value of variable renewables can be avoided by policy action

Author

Listed:
  • Brown, T.
  • Reichenberg, L.

Abstract

Although recent studies have shown that electricity systems with shares of wind and solar above 80% can be affordable, economists have raised concerns about market integration. Correlated generation from variable renewable sources depresses market prices, which can cause wind and solar to cannibalise their own revenues and prevent them from covering their costs from the market. This cannibalisation appears to set limits on the integration of wind and solar, and thus to contradict studies that show that high shares are cost effective. Here we show from theory and with simulation examples how market incentives interact with prices, revenue and costs for renewable electricity systems. The decline in average revenue seen in some recent literature is due to an implicit policy assumption that technologies are forced into the system, whether it be with subsidies or quotas. This decline is mathematically guaranteed regardless of whether the subsidised technology is variable or not. If instead the driving policy is a carbon dioxide cap or tax, wind and solar shares can rise without cannibalising their own market revenue, even at penetrations of wind and solar above 80%. The strong dependence of market value on the policy regime means that market value needs to be used with caution as a measure of market integration. Declining market value is not necessarily a sign of integration problems, but rather a result of policy choices.

Suggested Citation

  • Brown, T. & Reichenberg, L., 2021. "Decreasing market value of variable renewables can be avoided by policy action," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 100(C).
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:eneeco:v:100:y:2021:i:c:s0140988321002607
    DOI: 10.1016/j.eneco.2021.105354
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0140988321002607
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.eneco.2021.105354?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. 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.
    2. Tom Brown & Mirko Schäfer & Martin Greiner, 2019. "Sectoral Interactions as Carbon Dioxide Emissions Approach Zero in a Highly-Renewable European Energy System," Energies, MDPI, vol. 12(6), pages 1-16, March.
    3. Hiroux, C. & Saguan, M., 2010. "Large-scale wind power in European electricity markets: Time for revisiting support schemes and market designs?," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(7), pages 3135-3145, July.
    4. Andreas Schröder & Friedrich Kunz & Jan Meiss & Roman Mendelevitch & Christian von Hirschhausen, 2013. "Current and Prospective Costs of Electricity Generation until 2050," Data Documentation 68, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    5. Baumol, William J, 1972. "On Taxation and the Control of Externalities," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 62(3), pages 307-322, June.
    6. Haller, Markus & Ludig, Sylvie & Bauer, Nico, 2012. "Decarbonization scenarios for the EU and MENA power system: Considering spatial distribution and short term dynamics of renewable generation," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 282-290.
    7. Bernath, Christiane & Deac, Gerda & Sensfuß, Frank, 2021. "Impact of sector coupling on the market value of renewable energies – A model-based scenario analysis," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 281(C).
    8. Reichenberg, Lina & Hedenus, Fredrik & Odenberger, Mikael & Johnsson, Filip, 2018. "The marginal system LCOE of variable renewables – Evaluating high penetration levels of wind and solar in Europe," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 152(C), pages 914-924.
    9. Schlachtberger, D.P. & Brown, T. & Schramm, S. & Greiner, M., 2017. "The benefits of cooperation in a highly renewable European electricity network," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 134(C), pages 469-481.
    10. Joskow, Paul L., 2008. "Capacity payments in imperfect electricity markets: Need and design," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 16(3), pages 159-170, September.
    11. Jenkins, J.D. & Zhou, Z. & Ponciroli, R. & Vilim, R.B. & Ganda, F. & de Sisternes, F. & Botterud, A., 2018. "The benefits of nuclear flexibility in power system operations with renewable energy," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 222(C), pages 872-884.
    12. Lion Hirth, 2018. "What caused the drop in European electricity prices? A factor decomposition analysis," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 1).
    13. Hansen, Kenneth & Breyer, Christian & Lund, Henrik, 2019. "Status and perspectives on 100% renewable energy systems," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 175(C), pages 471-480.
    14. Hirth, Lion, 2016. "The benefits of flexibility: The value of wind energy with hydropower," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 181(C), pages 210-223.
    15. Hirth, Lion & Müller, Simon, 2016. "System-friendly wind power," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 51-63.
    16. Lion Hirth, 2013. "The Market Value of Variable Renewables. The Effect of Solar and Wind Power Variability on their Relative Price," RSCAS Working Papers 2013/36, European University Institute.
    17. Zipp, Alexander, 2017. "The marketability of variable renewable energy in liberalized electricity markets – An empirical analysis," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 1111-1121.
    18. Kan, Xiaoming & Hedenus, Fredrik & Reichenberg, Lina, 2020. "The cost of a future low-carbon electricity system without nuclear power – the case of Sweden," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 195(C).
    19. Paul L. Joskow, 2011. "Comparing the Costs of Intermittent and Dispatchable Electricity Generating Technologies," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(3), pages 238-241, May.
    20. Florian Egli & Bjarne Steffen & Tobias S. Schmidt, 2019. "Learning in the financial sector is essential for reducing renewable energy costs," Nature Energy, Nature, vol. 4(10), pages 835-836, October.
    21. Hirth, Lion, 2013. "The market value of variable renewables," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 218-236.
    22. Gautam Gowrisankaran & Stanley S. Reynolds & Mario Samano, 2016. "Intermittency and the Value of Renewable Energy," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 124(4), pages 1187-1234.
    23. Pietzcker, Robert C. & Osorio, Sebastian & Rodrigues, Renato, 2021. "Tightening EU ETS targets in line with the European Green Deal: Impacts on the decarbonization of the EU power sector," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 293(C).
    24. Tobias S. Schmidt & Bjarne Steffen & Florian Egli & Michael Pahle & Oliver Tietjen & Ottmar Edenhofer, 2019. "Adverse effects of rising interest rates on sustainable energy transitions," Nature Sustainability, Nature, vol. 2(9), pages 879-885, September.
    25. Verbruggen, Aviel, 2008. "Renewable and nuclear power: A common future?," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 36(11), pages 4036-4047, November.
    26. López Prol, Javier & Steininger, Karl W. & Zilberman, David, 2020. "The cannibalization effect of wind and solar in the California wholesale electricity market," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 85(C).
    27. Frew, Bethany A. & Becker, Sarah & Dvorak, Michael J. & Andresen, Gorm B. & Jacobson, Mark Z., 2016. "Flexibility mechanisms and pathways to a highly renewable US electricity future," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 65-78.
    28. Sensfuß, Frank & Ragwitz, Mario & Genoese, Massimo, 2008. "The merit-order effect: A detailed analysis of the price effect of renewable electricity generation on spot market prices in Germany," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 36(8), pages 3076-3084, August.
    29. Pietzcker, Robert & Osorio, Sebastian & Rodrigues, Renato, 2021. "Tightening EU ETS targets in line with the European Green Deal: Impacts on the decarbonization of the EU power sector," EconStor Preprints 222579, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, revised 2021.
    30. Anne Held, Mario Ragwitz, Pablo del Río, Gustav Resch, Corinna Klessmann, Arndt Hassel, Milan Elkerbout, and James Rawlins, 2019. "Do Almost Mature Renewable Energy Technologies Still Need Dedicated Support Towards 2030?," Economics of Energy & Environmental Policy, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 2).
    31. Lamont, Alan D., 2008. "Assessing the long-term system value of intermittent electric generation technologies," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(3), pages 1208-1231, May.
    32. Mills, Andrew D. & Wiser, Ryan H., 2015. "Strategies to mitigate declines in the economic value of wind and solar at high penetration in California," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 147(C), pages 269-278.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Keppler, Jan Horst & Quemin, Simon & Saguan, Marcelo, 2022. "Why the sustainable provision of low-carbon electricity needs hybrid markets," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 171(C).
    2. Martin Kittel & Wolf-Peter Schill, 2021. "Renewable Energy Targets and Unintended Storage Cycling: Implications for Energy Modeling," Papers 2107.13380, arXiv.org, revised Sep 2021.
    3. Justus Haucap & Jürgen Kühling & Munib Amin & Gert Brunekreeft & Dörte Fouquet & Veronika Grimm & Jörg Gundel & Martin Kment & Wolfgang Ketter & Jochen Kreusel & Charlotte Kreuter-Kirchhof & Mario Lie, 2022. "Erneuerbare Energien effizient und wirksam fördern [Promote Renewable Energies Efficiently and Effectively]," Wirtschaftsdienst, Springer;ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 102(9), pages 694-702, September.
    4. Finke, Jonas & Bertsch, Valentin & Di Cosmo, Valeria, 2023. "Exploring the feasibility of Europe’s renewable expansion plans based on their profitability in the market," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 177(C).
    5. Justyna Godawska & Joanna Wyrobek, 2021. "The Impact of Environmental Policy Stringency on Renewable Energy Production in the Visegrad Group Countries," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(19), pages 1-23, September.
    6. Blanquiceth, J. & Cardemil, J.M. & Henríquez, M. & Escobar, R., 2023. "Thermodynamic evaluation of a pumped thermal electricity storage system integrated with large-scale thermal power plants," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 175(C).
    7. Böttger, Diana & Härtel, Philipp, 2022. "On wholesale electricity prices and market values in a carbon-neutral energy system," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 106(C).
    8. Wehrle, Sebastian & Gruber, Katharina & Schmidt, Johannes, 2021. "The cost of undisturbed landscapes," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 159(C).
    9. Mowers, Matthew & Mignone, Bryan K. & Steinberg, Daniel C., 2023. "Quantifying value and representing competitiveness of electricity system technologies in economic models," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 329(C).
    10. Glenk, Gunther & Reichelstein, Stefan, 2021. "Intermittent versus dispatchable power sources: An integrated competitive assessment," ZEW Discussion Papers 21-065, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    11. Glenk, Gunther & Reichelstein, Stefan, 2022. "The economic dynamics of competing power generation sources," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 168(C).
    12. Prokhorov, Oleksandr & Dreisbach, Dina, 2022. "The impact of renewables on the incidents of negative prices in the energy spot markets," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 167(C).
    13. Jåstad, Eirik Ogner & Trotter, Ian M. & Bolkesjø, Torjus Folsland, 2022. "Long term power prices and renewable energy market values in Norway – A probabilistic approach," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 112(C).
    14. Liebensteiner, Mario & Naumann, Fabian, 2022. "Can carbon pricing counteract renewable energies’ cannibalization problem?," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 115(C).
    15. Say, Kelvin & Csereklyei, Zsuzsanna & Brown, Felix Gabriel & Wang, Changlong, 2023. "The economics of public transport electrification: A case study from Victoria, Australia," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 120(C).

    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. Ruhnau, Oliver, 2022. "How flexible electricity demand stabilizes wind and solar market values: The case of hydrogen electrolyzers," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 307(C).
    2. Ruhnau, Oliver & Hirth, Lion & Praktiknjo, Aaron, 2020. "Heating with wind: Economics of heat pumps and variable renewables," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(C).
    3. Eising, Manuel & Hobbie, Hannes & Möst, Dominik, 2020. "Future wind and solar power market values in Germany — Evidence of spatial and technological dependencies?," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 86(C).
    4. Ruhnau, Oliver, 2020. "Market-based renewables: How flexible hydrogen electrolyzers stabilize wind and solar market values," EconStor Preprints 227075, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics.
    5. Javier L'opez Prol & Wolf-Peter Schill, 2020. "The Economics of Variable Renewables and Electricity Storage," Papers 2012.15371, arXiv.org.
    6. Klaus Eisenack & Mathias Mier, 2019. "Peak-load pricing with different types of dispatchability," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 56(2), pages 105-124, December.
    7. Odeh, Rodrigo Pérez & Watts, David, 2019. "Impacts of wind and solar spatial diversification on its market value: A case study of the Chilean electricity market," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 111(C), pages 442-461.
    8. Bernath, Christiane & Deac, Gerda & Sensfuß, Frank, 2021. "Impact of sector coupling on the market value of renewable energies – A model-based scenario analysis," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 281(C).
    9. Klie, Leo & Madlener, Reinhard, 2022. "Optimal configuration and diversification of wind turbines: A hybrid approach to improve the penetration of wind power," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 105(C).
    10. Dujardin, Jérôme & Schillinger, Moritz & Kahl, Annelen & Savelsberg, Jonas & Schlecht, Ingmar & Lordan-Perret, Rebecca, 2022. "Optimized market value of alpine solar photovoltaic installations," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 186(C), pages 878-888.
    11. López Prol, Javier & Steininger, Karl W. & Zilberman, David, 2020. "The cannibalization effect of wind and solar in the California wholesale electricity market," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 85(C).
    12. Jägemann, Cosima, 2014. "An illustrative note on the system price effect of wind and solar power - The German case," EWI Working Papers 2014-10, Energiewirtschaftliches Institut an der Universitaet zu Koeln (EWI).
    13. Obermüller, Frank, 2017. "Build Wind Capacities at Windy Locations? Assessment of System Optimal Wind Locations," EWI Working Papers 2017-9, Energiewirtschaftliches Institut an der Universitaet zu Koeln (EWI).
    14. Brown, Patrick R. & O'Sullivan, Francis M., 2020. "Spatial and temporal variation in the value of solar power across United States electricity markets," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 121(C).
    15. López Prol, Javier & Steininger, Karl W. & Williges, Keith & Grossmann, Wolf D. & Grossmann, Iris, 2023. "Potential gains of long-distance trade in electricity," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 124(C).
    16. Pechan, A., 2017. "Where do all the windmills go? Influence of the institutional setting on the spatial distribution of renewable energy installation," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(C), pages 75-86.
    17. Lindahl, Johan & Lingfors, David & Elmqvist, Åsa & Mignon, Ingrid, 2022. "Economic analysis of the early market of centralized photovoltaic parks in Sweden," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 185(C), pages 1192-1208.
    18. Lion Hirth, 2015. "The Optimal Share of Variable Renewables: How the Variability of Wind and Solar Power affects their Welfare-optimal Deployment," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 1).
    19. Simshauser, Paul, 2019. "Missing money, missing policy and Resource Adequacy in Australia's National Electricity Market," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 1-1.
    20. May, Nils, 2017. "The impact of wind power support schemes on technology choices," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(C), pages 343-354.

    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:eee:eneeco:v:100:y:2021:i:c:s0140988321002607. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/eneco .

    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.