This paper examines the impact of the introduction of electricity futures on the spot-price volatility of the French (Powernext) and German (EEX) electricity markets, as well as the degree of their price correlation over the period 2002–2011. Our working hypotheses were tested based on a bivariate VECM-GARCH model. The results indicate that the introduction of futures contracts in the French electricity market, as well as the launch of the joint futures market in these countries in 2009, has decreased spot price volatility. However, this effect was not as explicit for the German market, due to data specificities. Other interesting results are: the German market dominates and leads the long run price relationship; the impact of cooling needs on demand is greater than the impact of heating needs; there is a substantial systematic pattern of electricity prices and their respective volatilities during weekdays and holidays. Overall, results are supportive of policy making at the European Commission regarding electricity market integration.
The impact of futures trading introduction on the volatility of the underlying market was first noticed when the Chicago onion futures market collapsed in the summer of 1958. The manipulation of onion spot prices following the introduction of futures trading led to unacceptably low prices and eventually to the market collapse. One major reason for this market failure was the non-storability of onions from one crop period to another that did not enable the hedging mechanism to operate. In this paper we examine the electricity, a similarly non-storable commodity, and the impact of the introduction of electricity futures on the volatility of its spot market.
Previous studies on this issue led to conflicting results. Extensive research has studied spot volatility changes upon futures introduction on stock indexes, bonds, exchange rates and different commodities, but none on the electricity markets. This paper examines, among other things, the impact of the introduction of electricity futures on the volatility of electricity spot prices with the primary focus on the particular structure and characteristics of electricity markets.
Our research is based on the spot markets for electricity in the EU, and in particular, on those of France (Powernext) and Germany (European Energy Exchange—EEX) which stand out for their maturity, their geographical position, the size of their overall consumption and production, as well as the high degree of their price correlation. These markets were chosen for two further reasons: first, they started operating almost simultaneously and second, since the beginning of 2009, the level of their collaboration has been significantly enhanced as a result of their joint venture both on EPEX spot market and EEX Power Derivatives GmbH.
The electricity markets sprang globally over the last decade, as a result of the evolving energy market liberalization and the privatization of state-owned enterprises. As a result, the study of all issues relating to the electricity futures markets attracted great research interest. One important reason for this interest is that the electricity markets differ from the traditional money and capital markets in many ways (Pilipovic, 1998). In particular, significant differences are observed in relation to maturity, trading volumes, concentration level, the complexity of the derivatives contracts available therein and, not least, the non-storability nature of the electricity. The non-storability makes the electricity market extremely sensitive to exogenous factors such as, the seasonality of demand, the regulatory uncertainty, the investment, maintenance and operation costs of the production units and the frequent supply-demand imbalances, which lead to price spikes.
The impact of the futures market on the volatility of the electricity spot market is critically important to the participants, with respect to both risk management and to spot market transactions. It is indeed crucial, not only to the producers, the consumers and the suppliers, but also to the regulators to comprehend the extent to which the financial instruments available to the markets allow them to deal with the various risks, hedge against price uncertainty, choose the optimal management of the operational costs and, effectively, enhance the operation of organized competitive electricity markets.
The organization of this paper is as follows: Section 2 provides an overview of the most important literature examining the impact of futures trading on the spot price volatility; Section 3 provides information on the institutional and market setting in the French and German electricity markets along with information on trading volumes and interconnection capacities; Section 4 describes and analyzes the data; Section 5, presents some theoretical considerations and the description of the model; Section 6, discusses the results of the empirical analysis and Section 7 provides a summary and concluding remarks.
