Strategic behaviour in a capacity market? The new Irish electricity market design
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Authors
Ritz, Robert
Teirila, J
Publication Date
2019-09Journal Title
Energy Journal
ISSN
0195-6574
Publisher
International Association for Energy Economics
Volume
40
Issue
1
Number
3305
Type
Article
This Version
AM
Metadata
Show full item recordCitation
Ritz, R., & Teirila, J. (2019). Strategic behaviour in a capacity market? The new Irish electricity market design. Energy Journal, 40 (1. 3305) https://doi.org/10.5547/01956574.40.SI1.jtei
Abstract
The transition to a low-carbon power system requires growing the share of generation from (intermittent) renewables while ensuring security of supply. Policymakers and economists increasingly see a capacity mechanism as a way to deal with this challenge. Yet this raises new concerns about the exercise of market power by large players via the capacity auction. We present a new modelling approach that captures such strategic behaviour together with a set of ex ante empirical estimates for the new Irish electricity market design (I-SEM) in which a single firm controls 44% of generation capacity (excluding wind). We find significant costs of strategic behaviour, even with new entry: In our baseline scenarios, procurement costs in the capacity auction are around 150-400 million EUR (or 40-100%) above the competitive least-cost solution. From a policy perspective, we also examine how market power can be measured and mitigated through auction design.
Sponsorship
This study is funded by the Fortum Foundation and the Strategic Research Council, Finland, Project No. 292854.
Embargo Lift Date
2022-09-30
Identifiers
External DOI: https://doi.org/10.5547/01956574.40.SI1.jtei
This record's URL: https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/288011
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