Posters

Abstract

Wind capture prices, and with that wind farm revenues, for new and existing installations depend on the overall wind capacity buildout pace in the respective power market, with a clear negative correlation between capacity growth and capture prices. Recently, we have observed a rapid decline of capture rates for solar power in several European countries, as overall installations have accelerated since the beginning of this decade, advancing the cannibalization effect on spot power prices. Wind operators in markets with strong capacity growth must expect that capture prices, and with that revenues, will decline within a growing wind sector. By varying the predicted rate of wind capacity buildout we measure how sensitive revenues are to the overall capacity growth, and ultimately to the ambition level of national wind power policies and to how favorable the investment environment is. This sensitivity differs between countries with different energy policies, weather, fossil and nuclear phaseout plans, storage capacity and cross-border interconnection. From today’s perspective, battery storage has a negligible impact on most spot power market prices. Looking forward, once battery storage is deployed at scale, the occurrence and level of low/negative prices will improve in favor of wind operators' revenues. At the same time, price peaks – which provide high revenue potential – are dampened. We measure which of the two impacts dominates and what the overall outcome for wind power revenues would be under different battery scenarios. In regions where solar cannibalization dominates over that of wind power, storage might have a higher impact on solar revenue and less on wind capture rates. We can see that this is the case when comparing the impact of battery capacity changes on wind capture rates in Britain – where solar power is less prevalent – and in Spain, where solar cannibalization is already quite advanced.