Transmission rights and market power
Most of the concerns about physical transmission rights relate to the ability to implicitly or explicitly remove that transmission capacity from the market-place. Under a very strict form of physical right, owners could simply choose not to sell it if they don't want to use it. Modifications that require the release of spare capacity back into an open market could potentially alleviate this problem but there is concern that such releases would not occur far enough in advance to be of much use to schedulers. Similarly, the transmission capacity that is made available for use by non-rights holders can also be manipulated by the owners of transmission rights. The alternative form, financial transmission rights, provide to their owners congestion payments, but physical control of transmission paths. In electricity markets such as California's, even financial transmission rights could potentially be utilized to effectively withhold transmission capacity from the marketplace. However, methods for withholding transmission capacity are somewhat more convoluted, and probably more difficult, for owners of financial rights than for owners of physical rights. In this article, the author discusses some of the potential concerns over transmission rights and their use for the exercise of various forms of market power.
- Research Organization:
- Univ. of California Energy Inst., CA (US)
- OSTI ID:
- 20013740
- Journal Information:
- Electricity Journal, Vol. 12, Issue 8; Other Information: PBD: Oct 1999; ISSN 1040-6190
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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