Price Volatility in Wind Dominant Electricity Markets

High penetration of intermittent renewable energy sources causes price volatility in future electricity markets. This is specially the case in European countries that plan high penetration levels. This highlights the necessity for revising market regulations and mechanisms in accordance to generation combination portfolio. Proposed solutions should be able to tackle with emerging challenges which are mainly due to high variability and unpredictability of intermittent renewable resources. In this paper high price volatility will be introduced as an emerging challenge in wind dominant electricity markets. High price volatility is unappreciated because it imposes high financial risk levels to both electricity consumers and producers. Additionally high price variations impede tracking price signals by consumers in future smart grid and jeopardize implementation of demand response concepts. The main contribution of this paper is to quantify volatility patterns of electricity price, as penetration level of wind power increases. Results explain a direct relationship between wind penetration and electricity price volatility in a quantitative manner.