The Economics of Renewable Electricity Market Integration. An Empirical and Model-Based Analysis of Regulatory Frameworks and their Impacts on the Power Market

As power systems increase in complexity due to higher shares of intermitting RES-E, so increase the requirements for power system modeling. This thesis shows empirically, with examples from Germany and Texas, that the increasing RES-E share strongly affects current power market operation. The markets further create price signals, which lead to system adaptations in the long-run. To get an estimate of the adaptation effects, 'The High Temporal Resolution Electricity Market Analysis Model' (THEA) has been developed. In a first application for the ERCOT market in Texas, particular model attributes are tested and compared to some complexity reducing approaches, i.e. the reduction of temporal resolution and the reduction of operational constraints. In both cases, the results show significant differences compared to the results when the full spectrum of THEA's capabilities is utilized. The ERCOT case study additionally shows that the adaptation to RES-E in an isolated, mainly thermal-based power system is quite severe. Market signals which underline this conclusion are the severely reduced value of wind energy, the increasing curtailment and the strong shift towards peak-oriented generating capacities. The second application of THEA models the German power market with its interconnected markets. This analysis increases the complexity significantly by modeling a well interconnected system, increasing the amount of different RES-E technologies and adding CAES investment options. In order to assess the impact on the different system component's supply, demand and grid infrastructure, specific measures are applied to compare several scenarios. Each scenario represents a policy option, which either reduces or increases the flexibility of the power system. The scenario comparisons capture the effects of a lower RES-E share, a larger baseload capacity fleet, higher interconnector capacities, various RES-E support scheme designs and the capability of RES-E to participate in the reserve power market. In general, the results show that if the flexibility of one system component is reduced, the flexibility values of other system components increase, which suggests a careful, integrated and long-term oriented policy setting