Control Power and Variable Renewables A Glimpse at German Data

Lion Hirth () and Inka Ziegenhagen
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Inka Ziegenhagen: Vattenfall GmbH, University of Leipzig

No 2013.46, Working Papers from Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei

Abstract: Control power (regulating power, balancing power) is used to quickly restore the supply-demand balance in power systems. Variable renewable energy sources (VRE) such as wind and solar power are often thought to increase the reserve requirement significantly. This paper provides a comprehensive overview of balancing systems in Europe, discusses the role of VRE, and presents empirical market data from Germany. Despite German VRE capacity doubled during the last five years and has surpassed 70% of peak load, contracted control power decreased by 20%, and procurement cost fell by 50%. Today, control power adds only 0.4% to household electricity prices. Nevertheless, we identify several sources of inefficiency in control power markets and imbalance settlement systems and propose a number of policy changes to stimulate the participation of VRE in control provision and to improve the incentives to forecast accurately.

Keywords: Balancing power; Control Power; Variable renewables; Wind power; Solar power; Market design (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D62 L94 Q42 Q48 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013-05
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ene and nep-eur
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (20)

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Working Paper: Control Power and Variable Renewables A Glimpse at German Data (2013)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:fem:femwpa:2013.46

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