IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cor/louvco/2023023.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Bidding and Investment in Wholesale Electricity Markets: Discriminatory versus Uniform-Price Auctions

Author

Listed:
  • Willems, Bert

    (Université catholique de Louvain, LIDAM/CORE, Belgium)

  • Yu, Yueting

    (Tilburg University)

Abstract

We compare uniform and discriminatory-price auctions in wholesale electricity markets, studying both long-run investment incentives and short-run bidding behaviors. We develop a monopolistic competition model with a continuum of generation technologies ranging from base load to peak load, free entry and uncertain elastic demand. Our findings reveal that discriminatory-price auctions are inefficient because consumers’ willingness to pay exceeds the marginal costs and investment incentives are distorted. Despite having an equal total installed capacity, the generation mix under discriminatory-price auctions skews towards a shortage of base-load technologies. Consequently, this results in a lower long-run consumer surplus.

Suggested Citation

  • Willems, Bert & Yu, Yueting, 2023. "Bidding and Investment in Wholesale Electricity Markets: Discriminatory versus Uniform-Price Auctions," LIDAM Discussion Papers CORE 2023023, Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE).
    • Handle: RePEc:cor:louvco:2023023
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://dial.uclouvain.be/pr/boreal/en/object/boreal%3A277793/datastream/PDF_01/view
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Robert Wilson, 2002. "Architecture of Power Markets," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 70(4), pages 1299-1340, July.
    2. Holmberg, Pär & Willems, Bert, 2015. "Relaxing competition through speculation: Committing to a negative supply slope," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 159(PA), pages 236-266.
    3. James B. Bushnell & Erin T. Mansur & Celeste Saravia, 2008. "Vertical Arrangements, Market Structure, and Competition: An Analysis of Restructured US Electricity Markets," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(1), pages 237-266, March.
    4. Bower, John & Bunn, Derek, 2001. "Experimental analysis of the efficiency of uniform-price versus discriminatory auctions in the England and Wales electricity market," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 25(3-4), pages 561-592, March.
    5. Natalia Fabra & Juan Toro, 2003. "The Fall in British Electricity Prices: Market Rules, Market Structure, or Both?," Industrial Organization 0309001, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    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. Holmberg, Pär & Tangerås, Thomas & Ahlqvist, Victor, 2018. "Central- versus Self-Dispatch in Electricity Markets," Working Paper Series 1257, Research Institute of Industrial Economics, revised 27 Mar 2019.
    2. 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.
    3. David P. Brown & David E. M. Sappington, 2023. "Market Structure, Risk Preferences, and Forward Contracting Incentives," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 71(4), pages 1146-1202, December.
    4. David P. Brown & Andrew Eckert, 2018. "Analyzing the Impact of Electricity Market Structure Changes and Mergers: The Importance of Forward Commitments," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 52(1), pages 101-137, February.
    5. Hunt Allcott, 2012. "The Smart Grid, Entry, and Imperfect Competition in Electricity Markets," NBER Working Papers 18071, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Brown, David P. & Sappington, David E. M., 2022. "The Impact of Wholesale Price Caps on Forward Contracting," Working Papers 2022-12, University of Alberta, Department of Economics.
    7. Willems, Bert & Pollitt, Michael & von der Fehr, Nils-Henrik & Banet, Catherine, 2022. "The European Wholesale Electricty Market: From Crisis to Net Zero," Other publications TiSEM 2f225964-853e-4d30-a46d-0, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    8. Machiel Mulder & Gijsbert Zwart, 2006. "Government involvement in liberalised gas markets; a welfare-economic analysis of Dutch gas-depletion policy," CPB Document 110, CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis.
    9. Boom, Anette, 2009. "Vertically integrated firms' investments in electricity generating capacities," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 27(4), pages 544-551, July.
    10. Karakatsani, Nektaria V. & Bunn, Derek W., 2008. "Intra-day and regime-switching dynamics in electricity price formation," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(4), pages 1776-1797, July.
    11. Giulietti, Monica & Grossi, Luigi & Waterson, Michael, 2010. "Price transmission in the UK electricity market: Was NETA beneficial?," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(5), pages 1165-1174, September.
    12. van Eijkel, Remco & Kuper, Gerard H. & Moraga-González, José L., 2016. "Do firms sell forward for strategic reasons? An application to the wholesale market for natural gas," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 1-35.
    13. Kalantzis, Fotis & Sakellaris, Kostis, 2012. "Investigating the Impact of the Greek Electricity Market Reforms on its Day-Ahead Market Prices," MPRA Paper 37794, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    14. Junjie Sun & Leigh Tesfatsion, 2007. "Dynamic Testing of Wholesale Power Market Designs: An Open-Source Agent-Based Framework," Computational Economics, Springer;Society for Computational Economics, vol. 30(3), pages 291-327, October.
    15. Brown, David P. & Eckert, Andrew & Silveira, Douglas, 2023. "Screening for collusion in wholesale electricity markets: A literature review," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 85(C).
    16. David P. Brown & David E. M. Sappington, 2023. "Employing gain-sharing regulation to promote forward contracting in the electricity sector," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 63(1), pages 30-56, April.
    17. Fabra, Natalia, 2021. "The energy transition: An industrial economics perspective," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    18. David P. Brown & David E. M. Sappington, 2023. "Load-Following Forward Contracts," The Energy Journal, , vol. 44(3), pages 187-222, May.
    19. Banal-Estañol, Albert & Rupérez Micola, Augusto, 2011. "Behavioural simulations in spot electricity markets," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 214(1), pages 147-159, October.
    20. Muñoz, Francisco D. & Suazo-Martínez, Carlos & Pereira, Eduardo & Moreno, Rodrigo, 2021. "Electricity market design for low-carbon and flexible systems: Room for improvement in Chile," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 148(PB).

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D44 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Auctions
    • D47 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Market Design
    • L94 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Transportation and Utilities - - - Electric Utilities

    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:cor:louvco:2023023. 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: Alain GILLIS (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/coreebe.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.