Essays on the Economics of Congestion Management - Theory and Model-based Analysis for Central Western Europe

Abstract

Concerning the design of (regional) electricity markets, the weighting of uniform pricing with re-dispatch on the one hand and zonal or even nodal pricing on the other hand largely depends on the trade-off between price signals, short and long-term incentives, liquidity and competition. The combination of the said aspects determines the overall efficiency of a market design and its congestion management. The thesis at hand addresses itself to various aspects of the described trade-off. With regard to the European context, the thesis presents a methodology to identify suitable bidding zones under consideration of the fundamental market structure. Furthermore, the static and dynamic efficiency of different re-dispatch designs is analysed theoretically. Subsequently, the influence of congestion management designs on the distribution of producer and consumer surplus is quantified for the case of Germany. Additionally, the magnitude of the losses in efficiency induced by re-dispatch models is assessed