EU spot prices and industry structure: assessing electricity market integration

Abstract

Purpose

The aim of this paper is to assess the state of spot price convergence between several European electricity day‐ahead markets.

Design/methodology/approach

The concept of a fully integrated market is developed through the arbitrage relationship in which spot prices at one location should equal spot prices at another location plus the price of transmission. Accordingly, neighbouring markets are analysed to measure the relevance or their respective interconnecting and transmission constraints. Exploratory data approach is used and results are discussed, namely by correlation analysis.

Findings

This paper empirically shows that price differences have decreased during the analysed period, suggesting that integration between markets might be rising. The correlation analysis indicates very few relationships between these continental European power exchanges, what makes us to anticipate continuing difficulties in the building of a single electricity market. Nevertheless, there is some evidence for local integration and some price convergence. Only France and Germany appear to be relatively integrated with higher correlation coefficients, compared to the other cases. In respect to the other markets, this correlation analysis demonstrates that price variations in several locations do not affect prices in the neighbouring locations. Spain appears to be poorly integrated with the other locations as might be expected by its peripheral position and limited cross‐border transmission capacity.

Originality/value

The paper assesses electricity market integration in the context of European Union spot prices and industry structure.

Citation

Pereira da Silva, P. and Soares, I. (2008), "EU spot prices and industry structure: assessing electricity market integration", International Journal of Energy Sector Management, Vol. 2 No. 3, pp. 340-350. https://doi.org/10.1108/17506220810892919