IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/enepol/v117y2018icp263-277.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

How renewable production depresses electricity prices: Evidence from the German market

Author

Listed:
  • Martin de Lagarde, Cyril
  • Lantz, Frédéric

Abstract

The urgency of climate change has led several countries to develop renewable energy in order to reduce CO2 emissions, through the means of various subsidies. In the electricity sector, one drawback of such policies is the negative impact on electricity prices, known as the merit-order effect. This paper aims at assessing how intermittent renewable production depresses electricity prices in Germany, which has experienced a significant increase of its renewable capacity over the last two decades. To do so, we use a two-regime Markov switching model, that enables to disentangle the impact of wind and solar generation, depending on the price being high or low. We find as expected that renewable production induces a negative marginal effect, which is stronger in regimes of relatively high prices. In addition, we show that both wind and solar productions have a significant impact on the distribution of prices, and in particular on the frequency and expected duration of each regime. This has implications in terms of market design, security of supply, and support mechanisms for renewables.

Suggested Citation

  • Martin de Lagarde, Cyril & Lantz, Frédéric, 2018. "How renewable production depresses electricity prices: Evidence from the German market," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 263-277.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:enepol:v:117:y:2018:i:c:p:263-277
    DOI: 10.1016/j.enpol.2018.02.048
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421518301253
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.enpol.2018.02.048?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. Kallabis, Thomas & Pape, Christian & Weber, Christoph, 2016. "The plunge in German electricity futures prices – Analysis using a parsimonious fundamental model," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 95(C), pages 280-290.
    2. Kanamura, Takashi & O[combining macron]hashi, Kazuhiko, 2008. "On transition probabilities of regime switching in electricity prices," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(3), pages 1158-1172, May.
    3. Mount, Timothy D. & Ning, Yumei & Cai, Xiaobin, 2006. "Predicting price spikes in electricity markets using a regime-switching model with time-varying parameters," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 28(1), pages 62-80, January.
    4. Fatih Karanfil and Yuanjing Li, 2017. "The Role of Continuous Intraday Electricity Markets: The Integration of Large-Share Wind Power Generation in Denmark," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 2).
    5. Tveten, Åsa Grytli & Bolkesjø, Torjus Folsland & Martinsen, Thomas & Hvarnes, Håvard, 2013. "Solar feed-in tariffs and the merit order effect: A study of the German electricity market," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 761-770.
    6. Fatih Karanfil and Yuanjing Li, 2017. "The Role of Continuous Intraday Electricity Markets: The Integration of Large-Share Wind Power Generation in Denmark," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 2).
    7. Haldrup, Niels & Nielsen, Frank S. & Nielsen, Morten Ørregaard, 2010. "A vector autoregressive model for electricity prices subject to long memory and regime switching," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(5), pages 1044-1058, September.
    8. Gray, Stephen F., 1996. "Modeling the conditional distribution of interest rates as a regime-switching process," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(1), pages 27-62, September.
    9. Haldrup, Niels & Nielsen, Morten Orregaard, 2006. "A regime switching long memory model for electricity prices," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 135(1-2), pages 349-376.
    10. Sáenz de Miera, Gonzalo & del Ri­o González, Pablo & Vizcaino, Ignacio, 2008. "Analysing the impact of renewable electricity support schemes on power prices: The case of wind electricity in Spain," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 36(9), pages 3345-3359, September.
    11. Ketterer, Janina C., 2014. "The impact of wind power generation on the electricity price in Germany," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 270-280.
    12. Keles, Dogan & Genoese, Massimo & Möst, Dominik & Ortlieb, Sebastian & Fichtner, Wolf, 2013. "A combined modeling approach for wind power feed-in and electricity spot prices," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 213-225.
    13. Hamilton, James D, 1989. "A New Approach to the Economic Analysis of Nonstationary Time Series and the Business Cycle," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 57(2), pages 357-384, March.
    14. Woo, C.K. & Horowitz, I. & Moore, J. & Pacheco, A., 2011. "The impact of wind generation on the electricity spot-market price level and variance: The Texas experience," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(7), pages 3939-3944, July.
    15. Haldrup Niels & Nielsen Morten Ø., 2006. "Directional Congestion and Regime Switching in a Long Memory Model for Electricity Prices," Studies in Nonlinear Dynamics & Econometrics, De Gruyter, vol. 10(3), pages 1-24, September.
    16. Hamilton, James D., 1996. "Specification testing in Markov-switching time-series models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 70(1), pages 127-157, January.
    17. Munksgaard, Jesper & Morthorst, Poul Erik, 2008. "Wind power in the Danish liberalised power market--Policy measures, price impact and investor incentives," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 36(10), pages 3940-3947, October.
    18. Do, Linh Phuong Catherine & Lin, Kuan-Heng & Molnár, Peter, 2016. "Electricity consumption modelling: A case of Germany," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 92-101.
    19. Karakatsani, Nektaria V. & Bunn, Derek W., 2008. "Forecasting electricity prices: The impact of fundamentals and time-varying coefficients," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 24(4), pages 764-785.
    20. Jónsson, Tryggvi & Pinson, Pierre & Madsen, Henrik, 2010. "On the market impact of wind energy forecasts," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(2), pages 313-320, March.
    21. Cutler, Nicholas J. & Boerema, Nicholas D. & MacGill, Iain F. & Outhred, Hugh R., 2011. "High penetration wind generation impacts on spot prices in the Australian national electricity market," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(10), pages 5939-5949, October.
    22. Kim, Chang-Jin & Piger, Jeremy & Startz, Richard, 2008. "Estimation of Markov regime-switching regression models with endogenous switching," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 143(2), pages 263-273, April.
    23. Goldfeld, Stephen M. & Quandt, Richard E., 1973. "A Markov model for switching regressions," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 1(1), pages 3-15, March.
    24. Hamilton, James D., 1990. "Analysis of time series subject to changes in regime," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 45(1-2), pages 39-70.
    25. Paraschiv, Florentina & Erni, David & Pietsch, Ralf, 2014. "The impact of renewable energies on EEX day-ahead electricity prices," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 196-210.
    26. Huisman, Ronald & Mahieu, Ronald, 2003. "Regime jumps in electricity prices," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 25(5), pages 425-434, September.
    27. Janczura, Joanna & Weron, Rafal, 2010. "An empirical comparison of alternate regime-switching models for electricity spot prices," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(5), pages 1059-1073, September.
    28. Cai, Jun, 1994. "A Markov Model of Switching-Regime ARCH," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 12(3), pages 309-316, July.
    29. Hamilton, James D. & Susmel, Raul, 1994. "Autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity and changes in regime," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 64(1-2), pages 307-333.
    30. Liu, Heping & Shi, Jing, 2013. "Applying ARMA–GARCH approaches to forecasting short-term electricity prices," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 152-166.
    31. Huisman, Ronald, 2008. "The influence of temperature on spike probability in day-ahead power prices," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(5), pages 2697-2704, September.
    32. Zachmann, Georg, 2013. "A stochastic fuel switching model for electricity prices," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 35(C), pages 5-13.
    33. 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.
    34. Bublitz, Andreas & Keles, Dogan & Fichtner, Wolf, 2017. "An analysis of the decline of electricity spot prices in Europe: Who is to blame?," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 107(C), pages 323-336.
    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. Cyril Martin de Lagarde & Frédéric Lantz, 2017. "Impact of Variable Renewable Production on Electriciy Prices in Germany : A Markov Switching Model," Working Papers hal-03187020, HAL.
    2. Ketterer, Janina C., 2014. "The impact of wind power generation on the electricity price in Germany," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 270-280.
    3. Woo, C.K. & Chen, Y. & Olson, A. & Moore, J. & Schlag, N. & Ong, A. & Ho, T., 2017. "Electricity price behavior and carbon trading: New evidence from California," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 204(C), pages 531-543.
    4. 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.
    5. Sapio, Alessandro & Spagnolo, Nicola, 2016. "Price regimes in an energy island: Tacit collusion vs. cost and network explanations," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 157-172.
    6. Zarnikau, J. & Tsai, C.H. & Woo, C.K., 2020. "Determinants of the wholesale prices of energy and ancillary services in the U.S. Midcontinent electricity market," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 195(C).
    7. Zarnikau, J. & Woo, C.K. & Zhu, S. & Tsai, C.H., 2019. "Market price behavior of wholesale electricity products: Texas," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 125(C), pages 418-428.
    8. Antoine Ferré & Guillaume de Certaines & Jérôme Cazelles & Tancrède Cohet & Arash Farnoosh & Frédéric Lantz, 2021. "Short-term electricity price forecastingmodels comparative analysis : Machine Learning vs. Econometrics," Working Papers hal-03262208, HAL.
    9. Joanna Janczura, 2014. "Pricing electricity derivatives within a Markov regime-switching model: a risk premium approach," Mathematical Methods of Operations Research, Springer;Gesellschaft für Operations Research (GOR);Nederlands Genootschap voor Besliskunde (NGB), vol. 79(1), pages 1-30, February.
    10. Woo, C.K. & Shiu, A. & Liu, Y. & Luo, X. & Zarnikau, J., 2018. "Consumption effects of an electricity decarbonization policy: Hong Kong," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 144(C), pages 887-902.
    11. Dillig, Marius & Jung, Manuel & Karl, Jürgen, 2016. "The impact of renewables on electricity prices in Germany – An estimation based on historic spot prices in the years 2011–2013," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 7-15.
    12. Weron, Rafał, 2014. "Electricity price forecasting: A review of the state-of-the-art with a look into the future," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 30(4), pages 1030-1081.
    13. 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.
    14. Joanna Janczura, 2012. "Pricing electricity derivatives within a Markov regime-switching model," Papers 1203.5442, arXiv.org.
    15. Angelica Gianfreda & Derek Bunn, 2018. "A Stochastic Latent Moment Model for Electricity Price Formation," BEMPS - Bozen Economics & Management Paper Series BEMPS46, Faculty of Economics and Management at the Free University of Bozen.
    16. Sapio, Alessandro, 2015. "The effects of renewables in space and time: A regime switching model of the Italian power price," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 85(C), pages 487-499.
    17. repec:dau:papers:123456789/15247 is not listed on IDEAS
    18. Ioannidis, Filippos & Kosmidou, Kyriaki & Savva, Christos & Theodossiou, Panayiotis, 2021. "Electricity pricing using a periodic GARCH model with conditional skewness and kurtosis components," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(C).
    19. Rinne, Sonja, 2024. "Estimating the merit-order effect using coarsened exact matching: Reconciling theory with the empirical results to improve policy implications," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 185(C).
    20. Cao, K.H. & Qi, H.S. & Tsai, C.H. & Woo, C.K. & Zarnikau, J., 2021. "Energy trading efficiency in the US Midcontinent electricity markets," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 302(C).
    21. Joanna Janczura & Rafal Weron, 2012. "Inference for Markov-regime switching models of electricity spot prices," HSC Research Reports HSC/12/01, Hugo Steinhaus Center, Wroclaw University of Science and Technology.

    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:enepol:v:117:y:2018:i:c:p:263-277. 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/enpol .

    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.