ON THE RELATION BETWEEN WIND POWER GENERATION, ELECTRICITY PRICES AND THE MARKET VALUE OF WIND POWER

摘要

In the last decade selected European electricity markets have faced a significant increase of wind power. Given the ambitious 2020 targets of the European Commission for Renewable Energies we can expect the historic trend to continue in the short to medium term. rnAs marginal cost of wind power is almost zero, rising amounts of wind power ceteris paribus have a dampening effect on electricity prices for a given power system. In literature this effect is referred to as the merit order effect and has already been studied extensively (see e.g. Neubarth et al. (2006) and Bode (2006)). From the power producers point of view the merit order effect lowers the market value of power generation. As wind power generation and electricity prices are correlated the question arises, if the effect on its market value is the same as e.g. for a base load technology. rnWithin an investigation of the long-term system value of intermittent power generation technologies Lamont (2008) finds, that the market value of wind power decreases with increasing wind shares while the average system price remains stable. He identifies the decrease in covariance between wind power generation and power prices to be the reason for this effect. Based on this finding we aim to investigate in more detail the impact of fundamental wind and system related parameters on the market value of wind power. rnTo understand principles and parameters that are affecting the market value of wind power is crucial for a number of stakeholders. Policy makers have to take the (economic) performance of generation technologies into account within their strategic decisions. Regulators base the design of support schemes on expectations on the market value of RES-E technologies that determines the cost of support. Finally, depending on the support mechanism, the market value of wind power may also influence the investment decision of potential investors.