Electricity markets in the western United States
This article introduces the use of rigorous econometric tools to understand the geographic scope of the market for generation services. These tools are applied to data from the current wholesale electricity market in the western United States. The behavior of the current wholesale electricity market and the methods used to assess the expanse of the geographic market in the current wholesale electricity market can go a long way toward informing the discussion of pricing behavior and performance in a restructured electricity industry. First, the current wholesale electricity market is already effectively unregulated and suffers from the same technical complexities that face a retail electricity market. Consequently, understanding the supply and demand conditions that cause the extent of the geographic market for generation services to narrow in the current wholesale electricity market can shed light on which times the geographic expanse of the market may narrow in a restructures electricity market. Second, the techniques developed in this paper to assess the extent of the current wholesale electricity market can be applied readily to a restructured electricity market. Finally, because market conditions in the electricity industry are likely to change significantly in the next few years, as the structure of the electricity sector changes dramatically, this analysis of the geographic expanse of the market can provide a useful benchmark against which to compare post-restructuring wholesale price relationships.
- OSTI ID:
- 289992
- Journal Information:
- Electricity Journal, Vol. 11, Issue 6; Other Information: PBD: Jul 1998
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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