Increased Concentration in the Norwegian Electricity Market: Is The
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Increased Concentration in the Norwegian Background Electricity Market: Is the Market Sufficiently The Nordic Power System Open, or Can a Dominant Norwegian Power Annual power consumption in Norway is 125 TWh, Company Raise Prices? while total Nordic consumption is about 380 TWh. Thus, we By Tor Arnt Johnsen * are talking about a market of the same magnitude as the British or German power markets. Figure 1 shows the Many restructured electricity markets have experienced geographical area and transmission connections between the market power problems. Market power has not played an Nordic countries and between the Nordic area and other important role in the Norwegian market. International com- European countries. parisons show that Norway has low prices. If market power Figure 1 has been applied, it has not led to large price increases for The Nordic Electricity System long periods. However, market concentration has increased over recent years, and privatization of major electricity producers may be part of future development. In order to continue to have a well-functioning and efficient power market, it is important to maintain a concentration level that RUSSIA stimulates competition. Introduction Since 1991, when the Norwegian electricity market was liberalized, mergers and acquisitions have led to a reduction in the number of generators. Statkraft, the large state-owned generator is one of the companies that has grown through various acquisitions. In Norway, the Competition Authority has to approve mergers and acquisitions and until 2001 they allowed this structural change to continue. However, when SWEDEN FINLAND Statkraft in 2001 bought 45.5 percent of the shares in Agder Energi, the Competition Authority did not approve the NORWAY transaction. The Ministry of Labor and Government Adminis- tration has the final word in such cases. Finally, the Ministry gave Statkraft permission, with conditions, to buy the shares of Agder Energy. The conditions were that Statkraft sell its shares RUSSIA in E-CO (Oslo Energy) and HEAS (Hedmark Energy). In addition, Statkraft has to sell 1 TWh of capacity. However, if the transmission capacity into South-Norway is increased by 200 MW before a given time, this last condition (1 TWh sale) may Hal ms tad be dropped. However, Statkraft continues to expand and re- cently acquired 100 percent of the shares in Trondheim Energiverk, DENMARK POLAND another large generation firm. The Competition Authority has stopped this case as well. GERMANY These cases have triggered discussion about market power issues within the Nordic and in particular Norwegian There are a large number of transmission lines and sea electricity market. In this article, we describe these markets, cables between Nordic countries and between Nordic coun- and we discuss how a dominant hydropower generator may tries and non-Nordic countries, see Table 1. apply market power in the Norwegian power market. The rest of the article is organized as follows: In the next Table 1 section, we give a brief description of the physical production Transmission Capacities, MW and transmission system in the Nordic area, and we give some From: To: Norway Sweden Denmark Finland Non-Nordic background information about the liberalization that was Countries undertaken in 1991. Next, we describe the current structure Norway 3170 1040 70 50a and concentration at the supply side of the Norwegian market. Sweden 2990 1840 1700 1200b Thereafter, we discuss market power in a Norwegian con- Denmark 1040 1840 1400c text. We focus on a hydropower production system with Finland 100 0 transmission connections to neighboring countries with ther- Non-Nordic 50 1200 1800 1500d mal power production systems. In particular, we focus on the Countries potential for using market power within seasonal and daily a b c d time horizons. Finally, we draw some conclusions. To Russia, To Germany and Poland, To Germany, From Russia Source: Haug and Johnsen (2002). * Tor Arnt Johnsen is Senior Advisor at the Norwegian Water Transmission capacities depend on the actual network Resources and Energy Directorate (NVE) and Visiting Research configuration, and capacities are not always the same in both Fellow at the Norwegian School of Management BI. His e-mail directions. Table 1 gives upper estimates of available capacities. address is [email protected] 18 There are large differences with respect to generation congestion within any of these two zones. technologies across the Nordic countries, see Table 2. The Nordic power exchange, Nord Pool, is the most Table 2 important marketplace. Nord Pool’s day-ahead market con- National Power Generation in 2001. TWh sists of 24 hourly markets. Market participants prepare and Hydro Nuclear Other Wind submit bids for the coming day before noon the day before, Thermala or 12 to 36 hours prior to the actual hour. Available Norway 121 1 information is the number and configuration of price areas Sweden 78 69 10 and the transmission capacities between the price areas Denmark 32 4 determined by the Nordic transmission system operators. Finland 13 22 36 Structure at the Supply Side a Condensing, district heating and industrial back-pressure stations fueled by coal, gas, oil and biomass. Table 3 shows the largest Norwegian hydropower pro- Source: Nordel (2002) ducers and their market shares based on expected generation More than 99 percent of Norwegian generation is hydro- in a year with normal hydrological conditions. power. In Sweden, almost 50 percent of generation came Table 3 from hydro in 2001, while nuclear power accounted for about Market Shares in Norway and the Two Most Common 40 percent and the rest was conventional thermal. Swedish Norwegian Price-zones. hydropower has a larger fraction of run of river generation Percent Calculated From Generation (TWh) in a Year With and relatively less reservoir capacity than in Norway. Coal Normal Precitipation based thermal power dominates in Denmark. Heavy subsi- dies to wind power projects in Denmark have led to an Norway South-Norway Mid- and North- Norway increasing share of wind power. In 2001, wind covered more Statkraft and partnersa 41 38 50 than 10 percent of generation. Finland has hydro, nuclear and b conventional thermal power. In Finland hydro accounts for E-CO 810 only 20 percent of generation, 30 percent is nuclear, while the Norsk Hydro 7 10 rest is conventional thermal power. Agder Energi 6 9 Lyse 57 Restructuring Status Trondheim Energiverk 3 11 Nord-Trøndelag 2 9 The Norwegian power market was restructured in 1991. Trønder Energi 1 5 Unbundling of generation and network services and manda- Salten 1 4 tory separation of the accounts for generation, transmission, Other 24 26 21 distribution and sales activities were introduced. Generation Herfindahl-Hirchman 0.19 0.18 0.28 and sales are competitive, while transmission and distribution Index are regulated natural monopolies. Transmission and distribu- tion are from 1997 due to income regulation with the income a Partners are companies where Statkraft owns more than 49 percent revised every fifth year. The regulatory authority is the or more of the shares. BKK (49.9 percent), HEAS (49) and Norwegian Water Resources and Energy Directorate (NVE). Skagerak (66.6) are included. b Statkraft owns 20 percent of the shares in E-CO Power is traded in voluntary day-ahead, futures and Note: Statkraft owns 35 percent of the shares in the Swedish forward markets. Based on predicted generation, consump- company Sydkraft, which owns 26.5 percent of the shares in tion and network availability, the system operator, Statnett Hafslund. E-CO owns 30 percent of the shares in Buskerud. SF, defines the geographical zones into which the day-ahead Source: Norwegian Competition Authority (2002). market is divided. Normally, two or three Norwegian zones are declared ahead of each season. Bilateral trade between Statkraft is a large state-owned producer with power parties located in different zones has to be bid as sale in the plants in many different parts of the country. At the national generating zone and purchase in the consumption zone. Zones level, Statkraft, including companies where Statkraft owns expected to last for less than three days are normally not 49 percent of the shares or more, have a market share of 41 defined. Short term transmission congestion and short run percent. In addition, Statkraft owns, directly or indirectly discrepancies between demand and supply are treated in a through a third company, smaller parts of seven other real-time market operated by the system operator. Norwegian producers. Most frequently, Norway has two Finland (1995), Sweden (1996) and Denmark (1999/ price-zones, South-Norway and Mid- and North-Norway. 2000) have followed in Norway’s footsteps and liberalized Statkraft and partners have a market share of 38 percent in their national electricity markets. Sweden and Finland do not South-Norway, while Statkraft’s market share in Mid- and apply price-zones when there are bottlenecks within the North-Norway is 50 percent. The Herfindahl-Hirchman national grids. These two national markets are separate zones Index (HHI) is 0.19 at the national level, 0.18 in South- at Nord Pool, and the national system operators relieve intra- Norway and 0.28 in Mid- and North-Norway. zonal congestion by sales and purchases in the real-time If we add Agder Energi and Trondheim Energiverk to (balancing) market. The word “counter-trade” is used when Statkraft and partners, Statkraft’s shares of the market the system operator buys and sells in order to eliminate become 50, 47 and 61 percent in Norway, South- Norway and national bottlenecks. Denmark consists of two parts, East- Mid- and North-Norway, respectively. The accompanying and West-Denmark, that are not electrically connected. HHI will change to 0.27 at the national level and to 0.25 and Thus, there are two Danish price-zones. The two Danish 0.39 for the two regions.