Combining Bottom-up and Finance Modelling for Electricity Markets

The high price volatility observed on liberalised electricity spot markets requires detailed modeling to successfully manage price risks. For example, in December 2001 prices at the German power exchange LPX exceeded 1000 €/MWh for certain hours, whereas the yearly average is around 22 €/MWh. In the USA even price spikes with more than 9,000 €/MWh have been observed. Also outside extreme events, price changes of 20% from one day to another are not unusual. In order to cope with this volatility, price models are needed which reflect the particularities of the electricity market, notably the non-storability of electricity. On the other hand, also the experience from other commodity markets has to be integrated in any model for electricity prices. Therefore, in the following a model is presented which combines several approaches.