HOW RESOURCES ARE SELECTED AND PRICES ARE SET IN THE WHOLESALE ELECTRICITY MARKETS

The New England high voltage grid provides electricity throughout New England. There are several hundred electricity-generating plants directly connected to the grid via substations. In 2018, the total output of these plants was 103,702 GWh, about 84% of the total supply to the NE grid. The rest of the supply was 21,409 GWh via 3 connections to nearby grids. See URL.

https://www.iso-ne.com/about/key-stats/resource-mix/

In 2018, the value of the wholesale market was $9.8 billion of which Energy Markets $6.0 billion (4.8 c/kWh); Ancillary Market $0.2 billion (0.16 c/kWh); and Forward Capacity Market, $3.6 billion (2.88 c/kWh, or $9.6 billion/(125 TWh) = 7.68 c/kWh. See URL.

https://iso-ne.com/about/key-stats/markets

In the Energy Market, almost all of the generator output is sold to NE utilities under power purchase agreements, PPAs, and under government mandates. For example:

 

- Ryegate, a VT woodchip-burning power plant, sells all of its output at 10 c/kWh to Burlington Electric Department, BED, and to Green Mountain Power, GMP; BED and GMP are forced to buy the expensive wood burning electricity to meet state-mandated Renewable Portfolio Standards, RPS, requirements.

- Georgia Mountain, a ridgeline wind power plant, sells all of its output to BED at 10 c/kWh under a PPA; BED is forced to buy the expensive wind electricity to meet state-mandated RPS requirements.

 

This URL has a table with electricity purchases by Green Mountain Power, GMP, under PPAs and under government mandates, during 2016. Such an electricity supply from various sources is typical for NE utilities.

http://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/green-mountain-power-co...

 

The annual NE wholesale energy prices have averaged about 5 c/kWh since 2008, courtesy of low-cost, low-CO2 natural gas, and low-cost, near-zero CO2 nuclear. The amount utilities pay in excess of that price is added to their rate base, which is used to set household, commercial and industrial rates. That excess is not part of the above $6.0 billion Energy Markets category.

That excess will increase as wind, solar, etc., are purchased in increasing quantities by utilities, at excessive prices, in future years. Example: The excess electricity cost of the future 3200 MW of expensive offshore wind planned by Massachusetts, comes to mind.

Wholesale Electricity Markets

 

This article describes how electricity resources are selected and electricity prices are set in the wholesale electricity markets.

https://www.iso-ne.com/about/what-we-do/in-depth/how-resources-are-...

 

ISO New England runs competitive energy markets where wholesale electricity is bought and sold. The goal of the markets is to provide the region with reliable wholesale electricity at competitive prices. The markets accomplish this goal with two core mechanisms: economic dispatch and uniform clearing price. Here’s how they work.

 

Economic Dispatch: Selecting Which Resources to Operate

 

Every five minutes of every day, ISO New England chooses resources to produce just the right amount of electricity to meet the region’s demand, and also chooses the least expensive resources available to meet that demand. This is called economic dispatch.

 

As electricity demand changes throughout the day, the ISO dispatches resources in economic merit order. The resources of owners submitting the lowest-price offers (in the Day-Ahead Energy Market) are dispatched first.

As demand increases, higher-priced resources are dispatched, with the highest-priced resources dispatched last.

As demand decreases, higher-priced resources are required to reduce outputs in reverse order, i.e., most expensive first.

 

NOTE: “Resource” refers to any asset that can participate in the markets, such as a generator, an electricity import, a demand resource—even a virtual trader.

 

Demand Resources: Some larger users have agreed to reduce their demand during high-demand periods, thereby freeing up more electricity on the grid for use by others.

 

Virtual traders do not own any assets and instead trade on financial positions.

 

Supply Offers Are Stacked in Economic Merit Order

 

Resource owners tell the ISO how many MW of electricity they want to sell and for what price, called supply offers. Sophisticated software sorts the supply offers from lowest to highest price, creating the supply stack (sometimes called the bid stack). The supply stack is then compared to the demand for electricity.

In the example:

 

Resources A–C clear the market (i.e., their supply offers are selected) because they’re offering the least expensive electricity needed to satisfy electricity demand.

 

Resource D only partially clears and will be scheduled to operate at less than full output.

 

Resources E–J do not clear at all because lower-priced resources can be used to meet demand.

Uniform Clearing Price: Determining Which Price to Pay

 

The energy price to be paid to all resources meeting demand is set by the resource in the supply stack that would satisfy the next increment of energy needed, if demand were to increase. This price-setting resource is known as the marginal resource. In the example above, Resource D is the marginal resource or price setter.

 

Every resource clearing the market will get paid Resource D’s price, regardless of the price asked for in their supply offer. This type of auction is called a uniform clearing price auction. It is common in competitive markets where commodities of all types are bought and sold. It is used in all the competitive wholesale electricity markets in the US.  

It may be difficult to understand why the same price would be paid to every supplier of the product, no matter how they produced it or how much it cost them to produce it, or even how much they offered to sell it for.

Commodities like corn, soybeans, or silver are a good example—each unit is just like the other. And that’s true of electricity—every electron is the same as every other electron. The uniform clearing prices recognizes the value of each unit of a product is the same.

NOTE: Per ISO-NE, “every electron is the same as every other electron”. That statement is certainly not true in case of wind and solar. Their electrons are inferior, because they could not be fed into the grid without the other generators, mostly gas turbine plants, performing the peaking, filling in and balancing, 24/7/365, to instantaneously offset the variations of wind and solar outputs, including ramping down in late morning and ramping up in late afternoon to compensate for varying solar outputs, i.e., dealing with daily Duck Curves and downward output spikes due to variable cloudiness. See Appendix.

 

NOTE: The bid stacking procedure is stacked in favor of wind and solar, because they can bid at artificially low prices/MWh (even as low as $0/MWh), because they have no fuel cost. This ensures their bids are accepted before bidders of higher priced resources. All accepted bids get the price of the highest accepted bid, the price setter. This is an always-win situation for wind and solar, highly unfair to the other resources. No wonder wind owners, etc., were making such a ruckus (claiming “discrimination, anti-wind”, etc.) to be allowed to bid in the Day-Ahead Energy market. Easy bonus money for them, at every one else’s expense. See URL.

NOTE: The entire bidding “merit order” process is rigged in favor of wind and solar. All they have to do is bid low, get selected and get paid the rate of the “price setter”; a very lucrative bonus on top of all their direct and indirect subsidies. This article describes just how it is done.

https://ddears.com/2019/07/30/fixing-the-rigged-market-for-electric...

 

http://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/cost-shifting-is-the-na...

http://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/large-scale-solar-plant...

http://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/deep-water-floating-off...

How Economic Dispatch and the Uniform Clearing Price Work Together

 

The object of economic dispatch is to minimize the total cost of producing electricity while meeting consumer demand for electricity and keeping the power system in balance:

- If demand increases, the ISO schedules the next-cheapest resource to increase its output, or to start operating it, if it was off line. 

- If demand decreases, the ISO tells the most expensive resource running to decrease its operation accordingly. 

 

These shifts can change the marginal resource and result in a new uniform clearing price. In the example below, demand for electricity has increased. Now Resource F is the last resource needed to satisfy demand, and Resource G is the marginal resource and sets the uniform clearing price for electricity, despite not having cleared the market.

Uniform Clearing Price: Determining Which Price to Pay

 

The energy price to be paid to all resources meeting demand is set by the resource in the supply stack that would satisfy the next increment of energy needed, if demand were to increase. This price-setting resource is known as the marginal resource. In the example above, Resource D is the marginal resource or price setter.

 

Every resource clearing the market will get paid Resource D’s price, regardless of the price they asked for in their supply offer. This type of auction is called a uniform clearing price auction, and it’s common in competitive markets where commodities of all types are bought and sold, and is used in all the competitive wholesale electricity markets in the US.  

It may be difficult to understand why the same price would be paid to every supplier of the product, no matter how they produced it or how much it cost them to produce it, or even how much they offered to sell it for. Commodities like corn, soybeans, or silver are a good example—each unit is just like the other. And that’s true of electricity—every electron is the same as every other electron. The uniform clearing prices recognizes the value of each unit of a product is the same.

Financial Settlement of Accounts

 

Credits and charges are ultimately calculated in the market-settlement process. Each seller with a cleared bid is paid for his cleared megawatts. Each buyer served is charged for the MW purchased—all at the uniform clearing price. Learn more about the ISO’s role in administering and settling the markets.

 

Day-Ahead vs. Real-Time Energy Markets

 

The transactions described above take place daily in New England’s two electricity markets where wholesale electricity is bought and sold. Together, these markets form a multi-settlement system: each market produces a separate but related financial settlement. 

 

- The Day-Ahead Energy Market produces financially binding schedules for sales and purchases for the following day. This allows market participants to hedge against price fluctuations that can occur in real time. 

 

- The Real-Time Energy Market balances the dispatch of resources to meet the real-time demand for electricity throughout New England, which can vary minute to minute. This market also settles the differences between the day-ahead schedule and the actual supply and demand. Participants are either charged or credited to reflect the real-time price for the amount of supply or demand that deviates from their day-ahead schedule. 

 

Real-Time Energy Market Clears Higher

 

In this example:

 

- Resource F cleared 100 MW at $52/MWh in the Day-Ahead Energy Market: a credit of 100 MW x 1 h x $52/MWh = $5,200.

- During the operating day, however, demand was higher and Resource F cleared an additional 50 MW at $55/MWh: an additional credit of 50 x 1 x 55 = $2,750.

- Resources G–I also cleared in real time and would be paid $55/MWh.

 

Conversely:

 

- A buyer purchased 100 MW at $52/MWh in the Day-Ahead Energy Market: a charge of 100 x 1 x 52 = $5,200.

- In real time, the buyer used, say, an additional 50 MW at $55/MWh: an additional charge of 50 x 1 x 55 = $2,750.

- The total charge is $7,950, a net savings, considering it would have cost him $8,250 to buy all 150 MW at $55/MWh in real time.

Real-Time Energy Market Clears Lower

In this example:

 

- Resource F cleared 100 MW at $52/MWh in the Day-Ahead Energy Market: a  credit of 100 x 1 x 52 = $5,200.

- During the operating day, Resource F’s 100 MW were not needed.  

- At the real-time price of $49/MWh, this would result in a charge of 100 x 1 x 49 = $4,900. That’s still a net profit of $300.

 

Conversely:

 

- A buyer purchased 100 MW at $52/MWh in the Day-Ahead Energy Market: a charge of 100 x 1 x 52 =  $5,200.

- The buyer used but only 50 MW in real time: a credit of  50 x 1 x 49 = $2,450.

- This was not a good trade. The buyer paid $150 more in the day-ahead market than he would have in real time.

 

How Economic Merit Order and Uniform Clearing Price Foster Competition

 

By setting a clearing price that is the cost of the marginal unit, the ISO maximizes competition and supports its goal of providing cost-efficient, reliable electricity to New England’s power grid. 

 

- Sellers are incentivized to submit offers based on their true cost; if they bid too high, they risk not being called upon to run and earning nothing.

 

- Certain resources bid low to ensure they’re dispatched.

- Resource owners are incentivized to reduce their costs and become more efficient so they can run profitably.

- The uniform clearing price auction creates a strong incentive for investment in new, low-cost resources. 

- As more low-cost resources enter the market, they can displace more expensive units, resulting in lower prices for consumers over time.

 

Reality Is Much More Complicated

 

The above examples provide a simplified way to understand how the markets work. In reality, the ISO manages market clearing and settlement for hundreds of market participants at hundreds of distinct clearing prices every day of the year.

 

Prices can vary:

 

- By location: This is called locational marginal pricing (LMP). It’s a way for wholesale electric energy prices to efficiently reflect the value of electric energy at different locations, accounting for the patterns of load, generation, and the physical limits of the transmission system. In New England, wholesale electricity prices are identified at 900 pricing points (i.e., p-nodes) on the bulk power grid.

- By time: In the Day-Ahead Energy Market, a clearing price is determined for each hour of the subsequent operating day. During the operating day, spot prices can vary every five minutes in the Real-Time Energy Market.

- Due to fluctuations in other inputs: Many factors can create price fluctuations throughout the day, seasons of the year, and locations in New England, such as:

 

1) Changing prices of the fuels that power plants use to make electricity (such as natural gas or oil)

2) The amount of consumer demand, which varies greatly throughout the day and year

3) Transmission constraints that can prevent the least-cost electricity from flowing freely in certain locations

4) Electricity lost in the transmission grid when electricity travels long distances

 

Sometimes, the ISO has to dispatch resources out of economic merit order to ensure the reliability of the power system. One example would be running a resource to maintain voltage in a load pocket within the range prescribed by federal reliability standards. Read FAQs: Net Commitment-Period Compensation (NCPC) to learn how resources are paid in these situations.

APPENDIX 1

Cost Shifting From Millionaire Owners to Struggling Ratepayers and Taxpayers 

 

Clever multi-millionaires have known about wind and solar being much more expensive compared with existing generation (coal, oil, gas, nuclear, hydro, etc.) for at least 25 years.

https://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/...

 

By beating the drums of climate change and global warming, and using clever lobbyists in the halls of Congress and State legislatures, they were able to get all sorts of goodies, such as upfront cash grants, upfront tax credits, low-cost loans, generous, above-market, feed-in tariffs, production tax credits, and loan interest and asset depreciation write-offs to avoid paying income taxes.

 

All that enables them, and others to claim wind and solar is equivalent and competitive with other workers. What more could these millionaires ask for?

 

Cost Shifting: Here is a partial list of the costs that were shifted, i.e., not charged to wind and solar plant owners, to make wind and solar appear less costly than in reality to the lay public and legislators.

 

1) The various forms of grid-stabilizing inertia (presently provided by synchronous gas, coal, oil, nuclear, bio and hydro plants).

 

2) The filling-in, peaking and balancing by traditional generators (mostly gas turbines in New England), due to wind and solar variability and intermittency, 24/7/365. Their random outputs require the other generators to inefficiently ramp up and down their outputs at part load, and to inefficiently make more frequent starts and stops, which also causes more wear and tear, all at no cost to wind and solar owners.

 

The more wind and solar on the grid, the larger the required up and down ramping of the gas turbines, which imparts added costs to owners for which they likely would not be paid: And the wind and solar erratic output is coddled by government programs and subsidies!!

 

Owners of traditional generators:  

 

- Have less annual production to cover power plant costs, which jeopardizes the economic viability of their plants.

 

- Are left with inefficient remaining production (more fuel/kWh, more CO2/kWh), due to up and down ramping at part load, and due to more frequent starts and stops, which leads to less fuel and CO2 reduction than claimed, and increased costs for owners. See URL

http://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/fuel-and-co2-reductions...

 

- Have more wear and tear of their gas turbine plants, which further adds to owner costs

 

NOTE: All of this is quite similar to a car efficiently operating at a steady 55 mph, versus a car inefficiently operating at continuously varying speeds between 45 mph to 65 mph, and accelerating for frequent starts and decelerating for frequent stops.

 

3) Any battery systems to stabilize distribution grid with many solar systems. They would quickly offset downward spikes due to variable cloud cover. See URL.

http://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/large-scale-solar-plant...

 

4) Any measures to deal with DUCK curves, such as a) daily gas turbine plant down and up ramping, b) utility-scale storage and c) demand management.

 

NOTE: GMP in Vermont, has determined 70 of its 150 substations will eventually need upgrades to avoid “transmission ground fault overvoltage,” (TGFOV), if more solar is added per requirements of the VT Comprehensive Energy Plan. This is nothing new, as utilities in southern Germany have been dealing with these issues for over ten years, which has contributed to German households having the highest electric rates (about 30 eurocent/kWh) in Europe.

 

5) Grid-related costs, such as grid extensions and augmentations to connect the remotely distributed wind and solar, and to deal with variable and intermittent wind and solar on the grid. Those grid items usually are utilized at the low capacity factors of wind and solar, i.e., a lot of hardware doing little work.

 

6) Utility-scale electricity storage (presently provided by the world’s traditional fuel supply system).

https://www.neon-energie.de/Hirth-2013-Market-Value-Renewables-Sola...

 

The above 6 items are entirely separate from the high levels of direct and indirect subsidies. They serve to make wind and solar appear to be much less costly, than in reality. See sections 1 and 2 and Appendix.

  

All that enables wind and solar proponents to endlessly proclaim: “Wind and solar are competitive with fossil and nuclear”.

 

Example of Cost Shifting: For example, to bring wind electricity from the Panhandle in west Texas to population centers in east Texas, about 1000 miles of transmission was built at a capital cost of $7 billion. The entire cost was “socialized”, i.e., it appeared as a surcharge on residential electric bills. Wind in Texas would have been much more expensive, if the owning and operating cost, c/kWh, of those transmission lines were added to the cost of wind.

 

Example of Cost Shifting: Often the expensive grid connection of offshore wind plants, say from 20 miles south of Martha's Vineyard, across the island, then about 7 additional miles under water, and then to the reinforced mainland grid, is not separately stated in the capital cost estimates, i.e., all or part of it is provided by the utilities that buy the electricity under PPAs to make PPA-pricing appear smaller than in reality. That cost would be “socialized”, i.e., it appears as a surcharge on residential electric bills, or is added to the rate base.

 

Wind and Solar Wholesale Prices in NE: Here are some wholesale prices of wind electricity RE folks in New England, especially in Maine, do not want to talk about. They would rather dream RE fantasies, obfuscate/fudge the numbers, and aim to convert others to their dream scenarios, somewhat like religious missionaries. See table 2.

 

Comments on Below Table

 

Indirect subsidies are due to loan interest deduction and depreciation deductions from taxable incomes.

Direct subsidies are due to up front grants, waiving of state sales taxes, and/or local property (municipal and school) taxes. See URL.

 

An owner of ridgeline wind would have to sell his output at 18.8 c/kWh, if the owner were not getting the benefits of cost shifting and upfront cash grants and subsidies.

That owner could sell his output at 16.4 c/kWh, if his costs were reduced due to cost shifting.

He could sell his output at 9 c/kWh, if on top of the cost shifting he also received various subsidies. The same rationale holds for solar. See table.

 

In NE construction costs of ridgeline wind and offshore wind are high/MW, and the capacity factor of wind is about 0.285 and of solar about 0.14. Thus, NE wind and solar have high prices/MWh. See table.

 

In US areas, such as the Great Plains, Texas Panhandle and Southwest, with much lower construction costs/MW and much better sun and wind conditions than New England, wind and solar electricity prices/MWh are less.

 

Those lower prices often are mentioned, without mentioning other factors, by the pro-RE media and financial consultants, such as Bloomberg, etc., which surely deceives the lay public

 

Future electricity cost/MWh, due to the planned build-out of NE offshore wind added to the planned build-out of NE onshore wind, likely would not significantly change, because of the high costs of grid extensions and upgrades to connect the wind plants and to provide significantly increased connections to the New York and Canadian grids.

 

NOTE: For the past 20 years, Germany and Denmark have been increasing their connections to nearby grids, because of their increased wind and solar.

 

The subsidy percentages in below table are from a cost analysis of NE wind and solar in this article. See URL.

http://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/excessive-subsidies-for...

 

Values for 2018 are represented in below table.

 

NE Wind/Solar

NE Wind

%

NE Solar

%

Ridgeline

Large-scale

c/kWh

c/kWh

Price to utility

No direct/indirect subsidies

No cost shifting

18.8

100

23.5

100

Less cost shifting

2.4

13

2.1

9

Price to utility

No direct/indirect subsidies

With cost shifting

16.4

87

21.4

91

Less subsidy, wind

45% of 16.4

7.4

39

Less subsidy, solar

45% of 21.4

9.6

41

Price to utility*

With direct/indirect subsidies

With cost shifting

9

48

11.8

50

 

* Owner prices to utilities are based on recent 20-year electricity supply contracts awarded by competitive bidding in New England. These prices would have been about 48% to 50% higher without the direct and indirect subsidies and the cost shifting. Similar percentages apply in areas with better wind and solar conditions, and lower construction costs/MW, than New England. The prices, c/MWh, in those areas are lower than New England.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Comment by Willem Post on July 5, 2019 at 10:48am

Dan,

"stranded costs" my foot.

The ultimate misnomer dreamt up by RE bureaucrat idiots.

The 10 c/kWh paid to 25%-efficient Ryegate wood chip-burning power plant (at least 3 of 4 trees are wasted) is about FIVE CENTS ABOVE the annual-average NE grid price, which has been unchanged since 2008, courtesy of low-cost, low-CO2 domestic gas and low-cost, near-zero-CO2 nuclear.

A SUBSIDY, all in the name of the heavily subsidized, worshipped holy cow called "RENEWABLES"

Stranded costs in the POWER INDUSTRY relate to an ASSET, such as a coal plant, being written off because it no longer is economical/profitable, due to various reasons.

Comment by Dan McKay on July 5, 2019 at 5:55am

Generally, prices within power purchase agreements exceed average wholesale prices obtained in the ISO-NE market. The Maine PUC will have the utility track these extra costs and classify them as  " Stranded Costs " 

 

Maine as Third World Country:

CMP Transmission Rate Skyrockets 19.6% Due to Wind Power

 

Click here to read how the Maine ratepayer has been sold down the river by the Angus King cabal.

Maine Center For Public Interest Reporting – Three Part Series: A CRITICAL LOOK AT MAINE’S WIND ACT

******** IF LINKS BELOW DON'T WORK, GOOGLE THEM*********

(excerpts) From Part 1 – On Maine’s Wind Law “Once the committee passed the wind energy bill on to the full House and Senate, lawmakers there didn’t even debate it. They passed it unanimously and with no discussion. House Majority Leader Hannah Pingree, a Democrat from North Haven, says legislators probably didn’t know how many turbines would be constructed in Maine if the law’s goals were met." . – Maine Center for Public Interest Reporting, August 2010 https://www.pinetreewatchdog.org/wind-power-bandwagon-hits-bumps-in-the-road-3/From Part 2 – On Wind and Oil Yet using wind energy doesn’t lower dependence on imported foreign oil. That’s because the majority of imported oil in Maine is used for heating and transportation. And switching our dependence from foreign oil to Maine-produced electricity isn’t likely to happen very soon, says Bartlett. “Right now, people can’t switch to electric cars and heating – if they did, we’d be in trouble.” So was one of the fundamental premises of the task force false, or at least misleading?" https://www.pinetreewatchdog.org/wind-swept-task-force-set-the-rules/From Part 3 – On Wind-Required New Transmission Lines Finally, the building of enormous, high-voltage transmission lines that the regional electricity system operator says are required to move substantial amounts of wind power to markets south of Maine was never even discussed by the task force – an omission that Mills said will come to haunt the state.“If you try to put 2,500 or 3,000 megawatts in northern or eastern Maine – oh, my god, try to build the transmission!” said Mills. “It’s not just the towers, it’s the lines – that’s when I begin to think that the goal is a little farfetched.” https://www.pinetreewatchdog.org/flaws-in-bill-like-skating-with-dull-skates/

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Hannah Pingree on the Maine expedited wind law

Hannah Pingree - Director of Maine's Office of Innovation and the Future

"Once the committee passed the wind energy bill on to the full House and Senate, lawmakers there didn’t even debate it. They passed it unanimously and with no discussion. House Majority Leader Hannah Pingree, a Democrat from North Haven, says legislators probably didn’t know how many turbines would be constructed in Maine."

https://pinetreewatch.org/wind-power-bandwagon-hits-bumps-in-the-road-3/

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