Electricity-market price and nuclear power plant shutdown: Evidence from California

C. K. Woo, T. Ho, J. Zarnikau, A. Olson, R. Jones, M. Chait, I. Horowitz, J. Wang

    Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articlepeer-review

    30 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    Japan's Fukushima nuclear disaster, triggered by the March 11, 2011 earthquake, has led to calls for shutting down existing nuclear plants. To maintain resource adequacy for a grid's reliable operation, one option is to expand conventional generation, whose marginal unit is typically fueled by natural-gas. Two timely and relevant questions thus arise for a deregulated wholesale electricity market: (1) what is the likely price increase due to a nuclear plant shutdown? and (2) what can be done to mitigate the price increase? To answer these questions, we perform a regression analysis of a large sample of hourly real-time electricity-market price data from the California Independent System Operator (CAISO) for the 33-month sample period of April 2010-December 2012. Our analysis indicates that the 2013 shutdown of the state's San Onofre plant raised the CAISO real-time hourly market prices by $6/MWH to $9/MWH, and that the price increases could have been offset by a combination of demand reduction, increasing solar generation, and increasing wind generation.

    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)234-244
    Number of pages11
    JournalEnergy Policy
    Volume73
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - Oct 2014

    Scopus Subject Areas

    • Energy(all)
    • Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law

    User-Defined Keywords

    • Electricity market
    • Energy policy
    • Nuclear shutdown
    • Prices

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