Futures market impacts on electricity prices

The power system and the real-time market operation are closely coupled with the future market positions taken by market participants. Assessing the stability of the realtime market is critical because an unstable market will be characterized not only by fluctuating prices that do not settle to constant values, but more worrisome, it could create the possibility of inducing slow electromechanical oscillations if left unchecked. We study the relation between the real-time market, potential market power exercise and the stability of equilibrium. We conclude that the role of futures markets on the real time market is closely related with market power mitigation and risk hedging. The stability of the clearing prices and generator output is not directly tied to future market positions taken by market participants. We finally conclude that market power potential has a significant impact on the stability of the market, raising a new tradeoff between market efficiency and market dynamics.