IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/enejou/v33y2012i4p96-118.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Do Centrally Committed Electricity Markets Provide Useful Price Signals?

Author

Listed:
  • Ramteen Sioshansif
  • Ashlin Tignor

Abstract

Centrally committed markets rely on an independent system operator to determine the commitment and dispatch of generators. This is done by solving a unit commitment model, which is an NP-hard mixed integer program that is rarely (if ever) solved to complete optimality. We demonstrate, using a case study based on the ISO New England system, that near-optimal solutions that are very close to one another in terms of overall system cost can yield very different generator surpluses and prices. We further demonstrate that peaking generators are more prone to surplus differences between near-optimal solutions and that transmission buses that are most prone to binding transmission constraints experience the greatest price fluctuations. Based on these findings, we discuss the potential benefits of a decentralized market design in providing more robust price signals.

Suggested Citation

  • Ramteen Sioshansif & Ashlin Tignor, 2012. "Do Centrally Committed Electricity Markets Provide Useful Price Signals?," The Energy Journal, , vol. 33(4), pages 96-118, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:enejou:v:33:y:2012:i:4:p:96-118
    DOI: 10.5547/01956574.33.4.5
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.5547/01956574.33.4.5
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.5547/01956574.33.4.5?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
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Crema, Alejandro, 1995. "Average shadow price in a mixed integer linear programming problem," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 85(3), pages 625-635, September.
    2. 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.
    3. John A. Muckstadt & Sherri A. Koenig, 1977. "An Application of Lagrangian Relaxation to Scheduling in Power-Generation Systems," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 25(3), pages 387-403, June.
    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. Ramteen Sioshansi and Ashlin Tignor, 2012. "Do Centrally Committed Electricity Markets Provide Useful Price Signals?," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 4).
    2. Tin Cheuk Leung & Kwok Ping Ping & Kevin K. Tsui, 2019. "What can deregulators deregulate? The case of electricity," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 56(1), pages 1-32, August.
    3. Jose Miguel Abito & Jin Soo Han & Jean‐François Houde & Arthur A. van Benthem, 2024. "Agency Frictions and Procurement: New Evidence from U.S. Electricity Restructuring," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 72(1), pages 20-48, March.
    4. ITO Koichiro & IDA Takanori & TANAKA Makoto, 2015. "The Persistence of Moral Suasion and Economic Incentives: Field experimental evidence from energy demand," Discussion papers 15014, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).
    5. Peter Cramton & Axel Ockenfels, 2012. "Economics and Design of Capacity Markets for the Power Sector," Papers of Peter Cramton 12cocap, University of Maryland, Department of Economics - Peter Cramton, revised 2012.
    6. Peter Cramton, 2022. "Fostering Resiliency with Good Market Design: Lessons from Texas," ECONtribute Discussion Papers Series 145, University of Bonn and University of Cologne, Germany.
    7. Takanori Ida, Kayo Murakami, and Makoto Tanaka, 2016. "Electricity demand response in Japan: Experimental evidence from a residential photovoltaic power-generation system," Economics of Energy & Environmental Policy, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 1).
    8. Daron Acemoglu & James A. Robinson, 2013. "Economics versus Politics: Pitfalls of Policy Advice," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 27(2), pages 173-192, Spring.
    9. Nolan Ritter & Julia Anna Bingler, 2021. "Do homo sapiens know their prices? Insights on dysfunctional price mechanisms from a large field experiment," CER-ETH Economics working paper series 21/348, CER-ETH - Center of Economic Research (CER-ETH) at ETH Zurich.
    10. Woo, C.K. & Zarnikau, J. & Moore, J. & Horowitz, I., 2011. "Wind generation and zonal-market price divergence: Evidence from Texas," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(7), pages 3928-3938, July.
    11. Severin Borenstein & James Bushnell, 2015. "The US Electricity Industry After 20 Years of Restructuring," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 7(1), pages 437-463, August.
    12. Erin T. Mansur, 2007. "Do Oligopolists Pollute Less? Evidence From A Restructured Electricity Market," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 55(4), pages 661-689, December.
    13. Mukherjee, Saral & Chatterjee, A.K., 2006. "The average shadow price for MILPs with integral resource availability and its relationship to the marginal unit shadow price," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 169(1), pages 53-64, February.
    14. Herter, Karen & Wayland, Seth, 2010. "Residential response to critical-peak pricing of electricity: California evidence," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 35(4), pages 1561-1567.
    15. Jinyeong Lee & Kyungcheol Shin & Young-Min Wi, 2024. "Decentralized Operations of Industrial Complex Microgrids Considering Corporate Power Purchase Agreements for Renewable Energy 100% Initiatives in South Korea," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 16(13), pages 1-23, June.
    16. Li, Y. & Flynn, P.C., 2006. "Electricity deregulation, spot price patterns and demand-side management," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 31(6), pages 908-922.
    17. Grimm Veronika & Zöttl Gregor, 2010. "Price Regulation under Demand Uncertainty," The B.E. Journal of Theoretical Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 10(1), pages 1-34, June.
    18. Llobet, Gerard & Fabra, Natalia, 2019. "Auctions with Unknown Capacities: Understanding Competition among Renewables," CEPR Discussion Papers 14060, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    19. Peter Cramton & Emmanuele Bobbio & David Malec & Pat Sujarittanonta, 2022. "Electricity Markets in Transition: A Multi-Decade Micro-Model of Entry and Exit in Advanced Wholesale Markets," ECONtribute Discussion Papers Series 183, University of Bonn and University of Cologne, Germany.
    20. Tahir Basharat Cheema & Nadeem Ul Haque & Afia Malik (ed.), 2022. "Power Sector: An Enigma With No Easy Solution," PIDE Books, Pakistan Institute of Development Economics, number 2022:12.

    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:sae:enejou:v:33:y:2012:i:4:p:96-118. 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: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    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.