IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/por/cetedp/0801.html

Measuring market power in the Iberian electricity wholesale market through the residual demand curve

Author

Listed:
  • Vitor Marques

    (Entidade Reguladora dos Serviços Energéticos, Lisboa)

  • Isabel Soares

    (CETE, Faculdade de Economia, Universidade do Porto)

  • Adelino Fortunato

    (Faculdade de Economia da Universidade de Coimbra)

Abstract

The existence of market power in the electricity market is a recurrent issue. Measuring and understanding market power practices in the Iberian electricity market turn out to be interesting: though a liberalized market, two integrated firms control 80% of total demand and there is a strong - often direct - intervention of government in the market. For various reasons, among which the difficulty in obtaining reliable, extensive data stands out, market power in the Iberian electricity market has rarely been measured. This work aims to contribute to a better knowledge of the way market power occurs. We calculate the elasticity of residual demand to evaluate the two dominant firm’s market power, using hourly bides in the Spanish spot market for the period July-August 2004 to 2006. Although our approach was highlighted by Frank Wolak work on the electricity sector, we extend it and discuss its constraints. We discuss the results obtained in the light of the evolution of the electricity sector during that period.

Suggested Citation

  • Vitor Marques & Isabel Soares & Adelino Fortunato, 2008. "Measuring market power in the Iberian electricity wholesale market through the residual demand curve," CEF.UP Working Papers 0801, Universidade do Porto, Faculdade de Economia do Porto.
    • Handle: RePEc:por:cetedp:0801
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.fep.up.pt/investigacao/cete/papers/DP0801.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Severin Borenstein & James B. Bushnell & Frank A. Wolak, 2002. "Measuring Market Inefficiencies in California's Restructured Wholesale Electricity Market," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(5), pages 1376-1405, December.
    2. Aitor Ciarreta & María Espinosa, 2010. "Market power in the Spanish electricity auction," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 37(1), pages 42-69, February.
    3. Baker, Jonathan B. & Bresnahan, Timothy F., 1988. "Estimating the residual demand curve facing a single firm," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 6(3), pages 283-300.
    4. Aitor Ciarreta & María Paz Espinosa, 2006. "Demand Elasticity and Market Power in the Spanish Electricity Market," Working Papers 0606, Departament Empresa, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, revised Jun 2006.
    5. Fabra, Natalia & Toro, Juan, 2005. "Price wars and collusion in the Spanish electricity market," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 23(3-4), pages 155-181, April.
    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. Raúl Bajo-Buenestado & Dodge Cahan, 2015. "Unification of Oligopolistic Markets for a Homogeneous Good in the Presence of an Antitrust Commission," Journal of Industry, Competition and Trade, Springer, vol. 15(3), pages 239-256, September.
    2. repec:ehu:dfaeii:6470 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Di Cosmo, Valeria & Lynch, Muireann Á., 2016. "Competition and the single electricity market: Which lessons for Ireland?," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 40-47.
    4. Ciarreta, Aitor & Espinosa, María Paz, 2012. "The impact of regulation on pricing behavior in the Spanish electricity market (2002–2005)," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(6), pages 2039-2045.

    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. Peña, Juan Ignacio, 2024. "A note on hydropower as a marginal price setter for Spain's electricity market in 2021–2022," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 87(C).
    2. Ribó-Pérez, David & Van der Weijde, Adriaan H. & Álvarez-Bel, Carlos, 2019. "Effects of self-generation in imperfectly competitive electricity markets: The case of Spain," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 133(C).
    3. Moutinho, Victor & Moreira, António C. & Mota, Jorge, 2014. "Do regulatory mechanisms promote competition and mitigate market power? Evidence from Spanish electricity market," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 403-412.
    4. Ciarreta, Aitor & Espinosa, María Paz, 2012. "The impact of regulation on pricing behavior in the Spanish electricity market (2002–2005)," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(6), pages 2039-2045.
    5. Brown, David P. & Eckert, Andrew, 2021. "Analyzing firm behavior in restructured electricity markets: Empirical challenges with a residual demand analysis," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    6. Simona Bigerna & Carlo Andrea Bollino & Maria Chiara D’Errico & Paolo Polinori, 2023. "A new design for market power monitoring in the electricity market. A simulation for Italy," Economia Politica: Journal of Analytical and Institutional Economics, Springer;Fondazione Edison, vol. 40(1), pages 285-317, April.
    7. Vítor Marques & Isabel Soares & Adelino Fortunato, 2012. "Application of a Structural Model to the Spanish Electricity Wholesale Market," European Research Studies Journal, European Research Studies Journal, vol. 0(4), pages 65-108.
    8. Crawford, Gregory S. & Crespo, Joseph & Tauchen, Helen, 2007. "Bidding asymmetries in multi-unit auctions: Implications of bid function equilibria in the British spot market for electricity," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 25(6), pages 1233-1268, December.
    9. Vítor Marques & Adelino Fortunato & Isabel Soares, 2012. "Can Structural Models be Useful to Understand the Electricity Wholesale Markets? An Application to Spain," Chapters, in: Joseph E. Harrington Jr & Yannis Katsoulacos (ed.), Recent Advances in the Analysis of Competition Policy and Regulation, chapter 15, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    10. Vítor Marques & Isabel Soares & Adelino Fortunato, 2008. "Uniform Price Market and Behaviour Pattern: What Does the Iberian Electricity Market Point Out?," GEMF Working Papers 2008-08, GEMF, Faculty of Economics, University of Coimbra.
    11. Bohland, Moritz & Schwenen, Sebastian, 2022. "Renewable support and strategic pricing in electricity markets," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    12. Richard Benjamin, 2016. "Tacit Collusion in Electricity Markets with Uncertain Demand," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 48(1), pages 69-93, February.
    13. Fabra, Natalia & de Frutos, Maria-Angeles, 2008. "On the Impact of Forward Contract Obligations in Multi-Unit Auctions," CEPR Discussion Papers 6756, Centre for Economic Policy Research.
    14. Erin T. Mansur, 2008. "Measuring Welfare in Restructured Electricity Markets," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 90(2), pages 369-386, May.
    15. Victor Moutinho & Ant nio Carrizo Moreira & Jorge H. Mota, 2015. "Measuring the Simultaneous Quantity Game in OMEL Spot Electricity Market," International Journal of Energy Economics and Policy, International Journal of Energy Economics and Policy, vol. 5(1), pages 305-320.
    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. Jorge Balat & Juan E. Carranza & Juan D. Martin, 2015. "Dynamic and Strategic Behavior in Hydropower-Dominated Electricity Markets: Empirical Evidence for Colombia," Borradores de Economia 886, Banco de la Republica de Colombia.
    18. Emmanuel Dechenaux & Dan Kovenock, 2007. "Tacit collusion and capacity withholding in repeated uniform price auctions," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 38(4), pages 1044-1069, December.
    19. Richard Benjamin, 2016. "Tacit Collusion in Electricity Markets with Uncertain Demand," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 48(1), pages 69-93, February.
    20. Aitor Ciarreta & María Espinosa, 2010. "Market power in the Spanish electricity auction," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 37(1), pages 42-69, February.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • L13 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Oligopoly and Other Imperfect Markets

    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:por:cetedp:0801. 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: Ana Bonanca (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/fepuppt.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.