The continued existence of uniform wholesale electricity prices for the German (and Luxembourg) electricity bidding zone or alternatively a geographical differentiation of prices are currently being discussed. The difficulty of the assessment concerns above all weighing the advantages of a uniform wholesale electricity price against the disadvantages resulting from the insufficient consideration of geographically differentiated production and transport costs. Possible instruments for geographical differentiation could be a division of the uniform German bidding zone, the introduction of a nodal pricing system or a load-oriented differentiation of grid charges.
These questions have been considered by a working group within the ESYS project of the German scientific academies under the direction of Prof. Dr. Hartmut Weyer, Clausthal University of Technology, in cooperation with Prof. Dr. Felix Müsgens, BTU Cottbus-Senftenberg. The following documents (in German) have been published in this context:
- acatech/Leopoldina/Union of the German Academies of Sciences and Humanities, Netzengpässe als Herausforderung für das Stromversorgungssystem - Optionen zur Weiterentwicklung des Marktdesigns (Stellungnahme), Oktober 2020, Click here to go to the document
- acatech/Leopoldina/Union of the German Academies of Sciences and Humanities, Netzengpässe als Herausforderung für das Stromversorgungssystem - Optionen zur Weiterentwicklung des Marktdesigns (Kurzfassung der Stellungnahme), Oktober 2020, Click here to go to the document
- Hartmut Weyer / Felix Müsgens (Ed.), Netzengpässe als Herausforderung für das Stromversorgungssystem - Regelungsfelder, Status quo und Handlungsoptionen (Analyse), Oktober 2020, Click here to go to the document
- Hartmut Weyer, EU electricity market design: EU-Strommarktdesign: Rechtsfragen von Knotenpreisen, N&R 2021, p. 142-149
- Hartmut Weyer, Das Zusammenspiel von Stromhandel und Engpassmanagement, in: Detlev Joost / Hartmut Oetker / Marian Paschke (eds.): Selbstverantwortete Freiheit und Recht. Festschrift für Franz Jürgen Säcker zum 80. Geburtstag, p. 709-725. Munich: C.H. Beck, 2021
The following documents are also available in English:
- Grid Congestion as a Challenge for the Electricity System. Options for a Future Market Design, (Position Paper), 2021, Click here to go to the document
- Grid Congestion as a Challenge for the Electricity System. Options for a Future Market Design (Summary of the Position Paper), 2021, Click here to go to the document