(Machine) Learning from the COVID-19 Lockdown about Electricity Market Performance with a Large Share of Renewables

Fuente: arXiv
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Autores principales: Graf, Christoph, Quaglia, Federico, Wolak, Frank A.
Formato: Preprint
Publicado: 2022
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author Graf, Christoph
Quaglia, Federico
Wolak, Frank A.
author_facet Graf, Christoph
Quaglia, Federico
Wolak, Frank A.
contents The negative demand shock due to the COVID-19 lockdown has reduced net demand for electricity -- system demand less amount of energy produced by intermittent renewables, hydroelectric units, and net imports -- that must be served by controllable generation units. Under normal demand conditions, introducing additional renewable generation capacity reduces net demand. Consequently, the lockdown can provide insights about electricity market performance with a large share of renewables. We find that although the lockdown reduced average day-ahead prices in Italy by 45%, re-dispatch costs increased by 73%, both relative to the average of the same magnitude for the same period in previous years. We estimate a deep-learning model using data from 2017--2019 and find that predicted re-dispatch costs during the lockdown period are only 26% higher than the same period in previous years. We argue that the difference between actual and predicted lockdown period re-dispatch costs is the result of increased opportunities for suppliers with controllable units to exercise market power in the re-dispatch market in these persistently low net demand conditions. Our results imply that without grid investments and other technologies to manage low net demand conditions, an increased share of intermittent renewables is likely to increase costs of maintaining a reliable grid.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2211_02196
institution arXiv
publishDate 2022
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle (Machine) Learning from the COVID-19 Lockdown about Electricity Market Performance with a Large Share of Renewables
Graf, Christoph
Quaglia, Federico
Wolak, Frank A.
General Economics
Economics
The negative demand shock due to the COVID-19 lockdown has reduced net demand for electricity -- system demand less amount of energy produced by intermittent renewables, hydroelectric units, and net imports -- that must be served by controllable generation units. Under normal demand conditions, introducing additional renewable generation capacity reduces net demand. Consequently, the lockdown can provide insights about electricity market performance with a large share of renewables. We find that although the lockdown reduced average day-ahead prices in Italy by 45%, re-dispatch costs increased by 73%, both relative to the average of the same magnitude for the same period in previous years. We estimate a deep-learning model using data from 2017--2019 and find that predicted re-dispatch costs during the lockdown period are only 26% higher than the same period in previous years. We argue that the difference between actual and predicted lockdown period re-dispatch costs is the result of increased opportunities for suppliers with controllable units to exercise market power in the re-dispatch market in these persistently low net demand conditions. Our results imply that without grid investments and other technologies to manage low net demand conditions, an increased share of intermittent renewables is likely to increase costs of maintaining a reliable grid.
title (Machine) Learning from the COVID-19 Lockdown about Electricity Market Performance with a Large Share of Renewables
topic General Economics
Economics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2211.02196