Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-89b8bd64d-r6c6k Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-05-11T09:45:37.569Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

14 - Conclusion

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 February 2022

Todd S. Aagaard
Affiliation:
Villanova University Charles Widger School of Law
Andrew N. Kleit
Affiliation:
Pennsylvania State University
Get access

Summary

After two decades in which they have grown tremendously in size, importance, and complexity, capacity markets are due for a comprehensive reassessment. The analysis in this book challenges several of the core assumptions on which capacity markets rest:

  1. 1. There is no consensus regarding the missing money theory used to justify capacity markets.

  2. 2. The use of forward capacity markets appears to lead to systematic errors in forecasting electricity demand, inducing capacity markets to procure excess capacity and impose excess costs on consumers.

  3. 3. Both regional transmission organizations (RTOs) and FERC seem fixated on concerns that capacity prices are too low, despite strong evidence that prices are higher than necessary.

  4. 4. Capacity markets have become increasingly and inexorably complex, due in significant part to regulatory accretion that undermines the role of market forces.

  5. 5. The widespread use of an engineering-based reliability standard based on a fixed risk-of-outage metric is ill-suited to the goal of reliability.

Information

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Book purchase

Temporarily unavailable

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

  • Conclusion
  • Todd S. Aagaard, Andrew N. Kleit, Pennsylvania State University
  • Book: Electricity Capacity Markets
  • Online publication: 24 February 2022
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108779159.014
Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

  • Conclusion
  • Todd S. Aagaard, Andrew N. Kleit, Pennsylvania State University
  • Book: Electricity Capacity Markets
  • Online publication: 24 February 2022
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108779159.014
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Conclusion
  • Todd S. Aagaard, Andrew N. Kleit, Pennsylvania State University
  • Book: Electricity Capacity Markets
  • Online publication: 24 February 2022
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108779159.014
Available formats
×