University of California Energy Institute

PWP-063

Zonal Pricing and Demand-Side Bidding in the Norwegian Electricity Market

Tor Arnt Johnsen (Statistics Norway), Shashi Kant Verma (Harvard) and Catherine Wolfram (Harvard)

PWP-063 analyzes prices in the day-ahead electricity market in Norway. We consider the hypothesis that generators are better able to exercise market power when transmission constraints bind, resulting in smaller, more-concentrated markets. We test this hypothesis by comparing equilibrium prices across periods with different demand elasticity and with and without binding transmission constraints. We find some empirical evidence that prices in local markets are higher during constrained periods when demand is less elastic.