IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/juipol/v75y2022ics0957178722000017.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Why capacity market prices are too high

Author

Listed:
  • Aagaard, Todd
  • Kleit, Andrew

Abstract

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and regional transmission organizations have fixated on a concern that prices in electricity capacity markets are too low. In fact, however, capacity markets are significantly overpriced. The reason for this is that the administratively determined demand curves in capacity markets create conditions that procure far more electricity capacity than what is needed to meet reliability objectives. In particular, the operators of these markets systematically overestimate both the relevant peak demand for electricity and needed payments for generators to enter the market. The result is that consumer pay billions of dollars extra for excess capacity.

Suggested Citation

  • Aagaard, Todd & Kleit, Andrew, 2022. "Why capacity market prices are too high," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 75(C).
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:juipol:v:75:y:2022:i:c:s0957178722000017
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jup.2022.101335
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0957178722000017
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jup.2022.101335?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. Aagaard,Todd S. & Kleit,Andrew N., 2022. "Electricity Capacity Markets," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781108747424, October.
    2. Terence Lim, 2001. "Rationality and Analysts' Forecast Bias," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 56(1), pages 369-385, February.
    3. Aagaard,Todd S. & Kleit,Andrew N., 2022. "Electricity Capacity Markets," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781108489652, October.
    4. Rafal Weron, 2006. "Modeling and Forecasting Electricity Loads and Prices: A Statistical Approach," HSC Books, Hugo Steinhaus Center, Wroclaw University of Technology, number hsbook0601, December.
    5. Francisco Moraiz and Dominic Scott, 2022. "The Impact of Capacity Market Auctions on Wholesale Electricity Prices," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 1).
    6. Peter Cramton & Axel Ockenfels & Steven Stoft, 2013. "Capacity Market Fundamentals," Economics of Energy & Environmental Policy, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 2).
    7. Wilson, James F., 2010. "Forward Capacity Market CONEfusion," The Electricity Journal, Elsevier, vol. 23(9), pages 25-40, November.
    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. Komorowska, Aleksandra & Kaszyński, Przemysław & Kamiński, Jacek, 2023. "Where does the capacity market money go? Lessons learned from Poland," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 173(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. 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. Antweiler, Werner & Muesgens, Felix, 2024. "The new merit order: The viability of energy-only electricity markets with only intermittent renewable energy sources and grid-scale storage," Ruhr Economic Papers 1064, RWI - Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-University Bochum, TU Dortmund University, University of Duisburg-Essen.
    3. Bichuch, Maxim & Hobbs, Benjamin F. & Song, Xinyue, 2023. "Identifying optimal capacity expansion and differentiated capacity payments under risk aversion and market power: A financial Stackelberg game approach," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 120(C).
    4. Brown, David P. & Eckert, Andrew & Silveira, Douglas, 2023. "Screening for collusion in wholesale electricity markets: A literature review," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 85(C).
    5. Pär Holmberg & Thomas Tangerås, 2023. "A Survey of Capacity Mechanisms: Lessons for the Swedish Electricity Market," The Energy Journal, , vol. 44(6), pages 275-304, November.
    6. Aagaard, Todd & Kleit, Andrew N., 2023. "Marginal vs. average effective load carrying capability: How should capacity markets deal with alternative generation forms?," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    7. Komorowska, Aleksandra & Benalcazar, Pablo & Kaszyński, Przemysław & Kamiński, Jacek, 2020. "Economic consequences of a capacity market implementation: The case of Poland," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 144(C).
    8. Lavička, Hynek & Kracík, Jiří, 2020. "Fluctuation analysis of electric power loads in Europe: Correlation multifractality vs. Distribution function multifractality," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 545(C).
    9. Eunsoo Kim & Suyon Kim & Jaehong Lee, 2021. "Do Foreign Investors Affect Carbon Emission Disclosure? Evidence from South Korea," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(19), pages 1-14, September.
    10. Axel Ockenfels, 2022. "Marktdesign für die Gasmangellage [Market Design for a Gas Shortage]," Wirtschaftsdienst, Springer;ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 102(11), pages 855-857, November.
    11. Karsten Neuhoff & Sophia Rüster & Sebastian Schwenen, 2015. "Power Market Design beyond 2020: Time to Revisit Key Elements?," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 1456, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    12. Niematallah Elamin & Mototsugu Fukushige, 2016. "A Quantile Regression Model for Electricity Peak Demand Forecasting: An Approach to Avoiding Power Blackouts," Discussion Papers in Economics and Business 16-22, Osaka University, Graduate School of Economics.
    13. Régis BRETON & Sébastien GALANTI & Christophe HURLIN & Anne-Gaël VAUBOURG, 2011. "Does the firm-analyst relationship matter in explaining analysts' earnings forecast errors?," LEO Working Papers / DR LEO 469, Orleans Economics Laboratory / Laboratoire d'Economie d'Orleans (LEO), University of Orleans.
    14. Angelica Gianfreda & Francesco Ravazzolo & Luca Rossini, 2023. "Large Time‐Varying Volatility Models for Hourly Electricity Prices," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 85(3), pages 545-573, June.
    15. Christian Gambardella & Michael Pahle & Wolf-Peter Schill, 2016. "Do Benefits from Dynamic Tariffing Rise? Welfare Effects of Real-Time Pricing under Carbon-Tax-Induced Variable Renewable Energy Supply," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 1621, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    16. Joanna Janczura & Aleksander Weron, 2008. "Modelling energy forward prices," HSC Research Reports HSC/08/03, Hugo Steinhaus Center, Wroclaw University of Technology.
    17. Miguel Ángel Rodríguez López & Diego Rodríguez Rodríguez, 2024. "La aplicación de datos masivos en economía de la energía: una revisión," Working Papers 2024-08, FEDEA.
    18. Rafał Weron, 2009. "Heavy-tails and regime-switching in electricity prices," Mathematical Methods of Operations Research, Springer;Gesellschaft für Operations Research (GOR);Nederlands Genootschap voor Besliskunde (NGB), vol. 69(3), pages 457-473, July.
    19. Joliet, Robert & Muller, Aline, 2016. "Are foreign earnings disclosures value-relevant?," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 170-183.
    20. Nowotarski, Jakub & Tomczyk, Jakub & Weron, Rafał, 2013. "Robust estimation and forecasting of the long-term seasonal component of electricity spot prices," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 13-27.

    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:juipol:v:75:y:2022:i:c:s0957178722000017. 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: https://www.sciencedirect.com/journal/utilities-policy .

    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.