Electricity storage and market power
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Published version
Author(s)
Williams, Olayinka
Green, Richard
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Electricity storage is likely to be an important factor in balancing fluctuations in renewable generators' output, but concentrated ownership could lead to market power. We model this for short-term (daily) storage in the British electricity wholesale market, with generating companies acting as either price-takers or Cournot competitors. We discuss how competitive storage charging and discharging behaviour depends on the balance between the market price and shadow price of stored electricity. Electricity storage raises welfare, consumer surplus and renewable generators’ revenues, while reducing revenues for conventional generators. Market power in storage slightly reduces the welfare gains; Cournot behaviour by generators reduces welfare but has relatively little impact on the incremental effect of storage. Market power in electricity storage is undesirable, but market power in generation is much worse. The interactions between market power in generation and in storage are complex, suggesting that predictions from one market may not apply elsewhere and context-specific modelling will be valuable.
Date Issued
2022-05-01
Date Acceptance
2022-02-21
Citation
Energy Policy, 2022, 164
ISSN
0301-4215
Publisher
Elsevier BV
Journal / Book Title
Energy Policy
Volume
164
Copyright Statement
© 2022 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
License URL
Identifier
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421522000970?via%3Dihub
Publication Status
Published
Article Number
112872
Date Publish Online
2022-03-11