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The (very) short-term price elasticity of German electricity demand

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  • Hirth, Lion
  • Khanna, Tarun
  • Ruhnau, Oliver

Abstract

Electricity is a peculiar economic good, the most important reason being that it needs to be supplied at the very moment of consumption. As a result, wholesale electricity prices fluctuate widely at hourly or sub-hourly time scales, regularly reaching multiples of their average, and even turn negative. This paper examines whether the demand for electricity responds to such price variations in the very short term. To solve the classical identification problem when estimating a demand curve, we use weather-driven wind energy generation as an instrument. Our robustness checks confirm that wind energy is indeed a strong and valid instrument. Using data from Germany, we estimate that a 1 €/MWh increase in the wholesale electricity price causes the aggregate electricity demand to decline by 67–80 MW or 0.12–0.14%, contradicting the conventional wisdom that electricity demand is highly price-inelastic. These estimates are statistically significant and robust across model specifications, estimators, and sensitivity analyses. At average price and demand, our estimates correspond to a price elasticity of demand of about –0.05. Comparing situations with high and low wind energy (5–95th percentile), we estimate that prices vary by 26 €/MWh, and the corresponding demand response to wholesale electricity prices is about 2 GW, or 2.6% of peak load. Our analysis suggests that the demand response in Germany can be attributed primarily to industrial consumers.

Suggested Citation

  • Hirth, Lion & Khanna, Tarun & Ruhnau, Oliver, 2022. "The (very) short-term price elasticity of German electricity demand," EconStor Preprints 249570, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:esprep:249570
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Oliver Ruhnau & Clemens Stiewe & Jarusch Muessel & Lion Hirth, 2023. "Natural gas savings in Germany during the 2022 energy crisis," Nature Energy, Nature, vol. 8(6), pages 621-628, June.
    2. Koolen, Derck & Huisman, Ronald & Ketter, Wolfgang, 2022. "Decision strategies in sequential power markets with renewable energy," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 167(C).

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Electricity markets; price elasticity; demand response; instrumental variables;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • Q41 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Energy - - - Demand and Supply; Prices
    • D47 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Market Design

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