Electricity retailing

About: Electricity retailing is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 5822 publications have been published within this topic receiving 107085 citations. The topic is also known as: electric power retailing.

Competition in the British Electricity Spot Market

Abstract: Most of the British electricity supply industry has been privatized. Two dominant generators supply bulk electricity to an unregulated "pool." They submit a supply schedule of prices for generation and receive the market-clearing price, which varies with demand. Despite claims that this should be highly competitive, we show that the Nash equilibrium in supply schedules implies a high markup on marginal cost and substantial deadweight losses. Further simulations, to show the effect of entry by 1994, produce somewhat lower prices, at the cost of excessive entry; subdividing the generators into five firms would produce better results.

Worldwide electricity used in data centers

Abstract: The direct electricity used by data centers has become an important issue in recent years as demands for new Internet services (such as search, music downloads, video-on-demand, social networking, and telephony) have become more widespread. This study estimates historical electricity used by data centers worldwide and regionally on the basis of more detailed data than were available for previous assessments, including electricity used by servers, data center communications, and storage equipment. Aggregate electricity use for data centers doubled worldwide from 2000 to 2005. Three quarters of this growth was the result of growth in the number of the least expensive (volume) servers. Data center communications and storage equipment each contributed about 10% of the growth. Total electricity use grew at an average annual rate of 16.7% per year, with the Asia Pacific region (without Japan) being the only major world region with growth significantly exceeding that average. Direct electricity used by information technology equipment in data centers represented about 0.5% of total world electricity consumption in 2005. When electricity for cooling and power distribution is included, that figure is about 1%. Worldwide data center power demand in 2005 was equivalent (in capacity terms) to about seventeen 1000 MW power plants.

Measuring Market Inefficiencies in California's Restructured Wholesale Electricity Market

Abstract: We present a method for decomposing wholesale electricity payments into production costs, inframarginal competitive rents, and payments resulting from the exercise of market power. The method also parses actual variable costs into the minimum variable costs necessary to meet demand and increased production costs caused by market power and other market inefficiencies. Using data from June 1998 to October 2000 in California, we find significant departures from competitive pricing, particularly during the high-demand summer months. Electricity expenditures in the state's restructured wholesale market rose from $2.04 billion in summer 1999 to $8.98 billion in summer 2000. We find that 21% of this increase was due to increased production costs, 20% was due to increased competitive rents, and the remaining 59% was attributable to increased market power.

Demand-side view of electricity markets

Abstract: This tutorial paper discusses some aspects of electricity markets from the perspective of the demand-side. It argues that increasing the short-run price elasticity of the demand for electrical energy would improve the operation of these markets. It shows, however, that enhancing this elasticity is not an easy task. The tools that consumers and retailers of electrical energy need to participate more actively and effectively in electricity markets are discussed. The paper also describes how consumers of electricity can take part in the provision of power system security.