Control Power and Variable Renewables: A Glimpse at German Data

Arbeitspapier

Control power (regulating power, balancing power) is used to quickly restore the supply-demand balance in power systems. Variable renewable energy sources (VRE) such as wind and solar power are often thought to increase the reserve requirement significantly. This paper provides a comprehensive overview of balancing systems in Europe, discusses the role of VRE, and presents empirical market data from Germany. Despite German VRE capacity doubled during the last five years and has surpassed 70% of peak load, contracted control power decreased by 20%, and procurement cost fell by 50%. Today, control power adds only 0.4% to household electricity prices. Nevertheless, we identify several sources of inefficiency in control power markets and imbalance settlement systems and propose a number of policy changes to stimulate the participation of VRE in control provision and to improve the incentives to forecast accurately.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: Nota di Lavoro ; No. 46.2013

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Alternative Energy Sources ; Energy: Government Policy ; Electric Utilities ; Externalities
• Subject: Balancing power ; Control Power ; Variable renewables ; Wind power ; Solar power ; Market design

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Hirth, Lion ; Ziegenhagen, Inka
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM)
• (where): Milano
• (when): 2013

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/74815
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:43 AM CET