IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/jecper/v16y2002i1p191-211.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Trouble With Electricity Markets: Understanding California's Restructuring Disaster

Author

Listed:
  • Severin Borenstein

Abstract

In June 2000, after two years of fairly smooth operation, California's deregulated wholesale electricity market began producing extremely high prices and threats of supply shortages. The upheaval demonstrated dramatically why most current electricity markets are extremely volatile: demand is difficult to forecast and exhibits virtually no price responsiveness, while supply faces strict production constraints and prohibitive storage costs. This structure leads to periods of surplus and of shortage, the latter exacerbated by sellers' ability to exercise market power. Electricity markets can function much more smoothly, however, if they are designed to support price-responsive demand and long-term wholesale contracts for electricity.

Suggested Citation

  • Severin Borenstein, 2002. "The Trouble With Electricity Markets: Understanding California's Restructuring Disaster," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 16(1), pages 191-211, Winter.
    • Handle: RePEc:aea:jecper:v:16:y:2002:i:1:p:191-211
    Note: DOI: 10.1257/0895330027175
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/0895330027175
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Borenstein, Severin, 2000. "Understanding Competitive Pricing and Market Power in Wholesale Electricity Markets," The Electricity Journal, Elsevier, vol. 13(6), pages 49-57, July.
    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. Schreiner, Lena & Madlener, Reinhard, 2022. "Investing in power grid infrastructure as a flexibility option: A DSGE assessment for Germany," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 107(C).
    2. Csereklyei, Zsuzsanna & Qu, Songze & Ancev, Tihomir, 2019. "The effect of wind and solar power generation on wholesale electricity prices in Australia," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 131(C), pages 358-369.
    3. Alhadhrami, Saeed & Soto, Gabriel J & Lindley, Ben, 2023. "Dispatch analysis of flexible power operation with multi-unit small modular reactors," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 280(C).
    4. Thao Pham, 2016. "Energiewende and competition in Germany: Diagnosing market power in wholesale electricity market," Post-Print hal-02568253, HAL.
    5. Macatangay, Rafael Emmanuel A., 2001. "Market definition and dominant position abuse under the new electricity trading arrangements in England and Wales," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 29(5), pages 337-340, April.
    6. Özge .Ic{s}legen & Stefan Reichelstein, 2011. "Carbon Capture by Fossil Fuel Power Plants: An Economic Analysis," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 57(1), pages 21-39, January.
    7. Fabra, Natalia, 2018. "A primer on capacity mechanisms," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 75(C), pages 323-335.
    8. Valenzuela, Jose Maria, 2023. "State ownership in liberal economic governance? De-risking private investment in the electricity sector in Mexico," World Development Perspectives, Elsevier, vol. 31(C).
    9. Bunn, Derek W. & Day, Christopher J., 2009. "Computational modelling of price formation in the electricity pool of England and Wales," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 33(2), pages 363-376, February.
    10. Goto, Mika & Karolyi, G. Andrew, 2004. "Understanding Electricity Price Volatility within and across Markets," Working Paper Series 2004-12, Ohio State University, Charles A. Dice Center for Research in Financial Economics.
    11. Munhoz, Fernando Colli, 2021. "Two-settlement system for the Brazilian electricity market," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 152(C).
    12. Arnold Rivasplata R. & Raúl García C., 2018. "Dinámica de inversión y competencia en generación eléctrica en un escenario de liberalización en el Perú: La importancia de los contratos de largo plazo," Documentos de Trabajo / Working Papers 2018-457, Departamento de Economía - Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú.
    13. Sirin, Selahattin Murat & Erten, Ibrahim, 2022. "Price spikes, temporary price caps, and welfare effects of regulatory interventions on wholesale electricity markets," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 163(C).
    14. Dormady, Noah C., 2014. "Carbon auctions, energy markets & market power: An experimental analysis," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 468-482.
    15. Stefan Reichelstein & Anna Rohlfing-Bastian, 2014. "Levelized Product Cost: Concept and Decision Relevance," CESifo Working Paper Series 4590, CESifo.
    16. Perez, Eloy, 2007. "A model of vertical integration and investment in generation capacity in electricity markets: The case of the bidding game," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 41(4), pages 272-290, December.
    17. Csereklyei, Zsuzsanna & Khezr, Peyman, 2024. "How do changes in settlement periods affect wholesale market prices? Evidence from Australia's National Electricity Market," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 132(C).
    18. Loizidis, Stylianos & Kyprianou, Andreas & Georghiou, George E., 2024. "Electricity market price forecasting using ELM and Bootstrap analysis: A case study of the German and Finnish Day-Ahead markets," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 363(C).
    19. Lynne Kiesling & Bart Wilson, 2007. "An experimental analysis of the effects of automated mitigation procedures on investment and prices in wholesale electricity markets," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 31(3), pages 313-334, June.
    20. Rafael Macatangay, 2002. "Tacit Collusion in the Frequently Repeated Multi-Unit Uniform Price Auction for Wholesale Electricity in England and Wales," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 13(3), pages 257-273, May.

    More about this item

    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:aea:jecper:v:16:y:2002:i:1:p:191-211. 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: Michael P. Albert (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aeaaaea.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.