Renewable energy and electricity prices: indirect empirical evidence from hydro power

Abstract

Many countries have introduced policies to stimulate the production of electricity in a sustainable or renewable way. Theoretical and simulation studies provide evidence that the introduction of renewable energy promotion policies lead to lower electricity prices as sustainable energy supply as wind and solar have very low or even zero marginal costs. Empirical support for this result is relatively scarce. The motivation for this study is to provide additional empirical evidence on how the growth of low marginal costs renewable energy supply such as wind and solar influences power prices. We do so indirectly studying Nord Pool market prices where hydro power is the dominant supply source. We argue that the marginal costs of hydro production varies depending on reservoir levels that determine hydro production capacity. ...