Renewable generation investment with differentiated downstream competition

Brendan Badia, Randall Berry, Ermin Wei

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

Abstract

With the cost of renewable electricity generation like solar and wind decreasing, the share of total generation provided by such sources is growing. This leads to questions of how utilities should deal with integrating renewables into the grid. An interesting and not commonly studied case of this is when firms consume significant amounts of electricity in order to serve their customers (e.g., electric vehicle charging stations) and can get it either from the grid or through renewable generation they install themselves. Furthermore, if they have more renewable generation than needed to serve their customers they can sell it back to the grid. Therefore, the cost of electricity and value of excess generation affects firm's interest in renewable generation, and has impacts on both the grid (by affecting how much renewable generation firms will provide) as well as the downstream market (by affecting the cost structure at both firms and how they compete).We study this though a two stage oligopolistic model. In the first stage, two differentiated firms choose a level of investment in renewable generation. In the second stage, they compete over prices to serve customers. We show equilibria always exist, and the difference between price of electricity and the feed-in tariff has potentially large implications for the number and type of equilibria as well as aggregate outcomes.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publication2019 57th Annual Allerton Conference on Communication, Control, and Computing, Allerton 2019
PublisherInstitute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.
Pages157-164
Number of pages8
ISBN (Electronic)9781728131511
DOIs
StatePublished - Sep 2019
Event57th Annual Allerton Conference on Communication, Control, and Computing, Allerton 2019 - Monticello, United States
Duration: Sep 24 2019Sep 27 2019

Publication series

Name2019 57th Annual Allerton Conference on Communication, Control, and Computing, Allerton 2019

Conference

Conference57th Annual Allerton Conference on Communication, Control, and Computing, Allerton 2019
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CityMonticello
Period9/24/199/27/19

Funding

This work was supported by Leslie and Mac McQuown

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Artificial Intelligence
  • Computer Networks and Communications
  • Hardware and Architecture
  • Safety, Risk, Reliability and Quality
  • Control and Optimization

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