Abstract

The Russian wholesale electricity market is divided into two price zones: the European (first) price zone and the Siberian (second) price zone. The pricing mechanisms in the first and second price zones are the same: within each price zone, there is a free competition market between producers, which is provided by a significant transmission capacity of the electrical network. At the same time, the flow between the price zones is insignificant, and the equilibrium prices differ to a large extent, since competitive bidding for electricity and capacity is held separately for each price zone. During the analysis of the spot prices by the price zones a two-level model of stochastic volatility was developed. It was already shown that the dynamics of electricity prices are significantly different in the European and Siberian price zones. The transition to the analysis of reginal prices allows to identify the possible causes of these differences. In particular, one of the analysis tools is the construction of linear regressions of estimates of the coefficients of the stochastic volatility model (calculated for each node/region) on the permanent region’s characteristics (geographical location of the region, shares of TPPs, NPPs and HPPs in the power generation structure, shares TPPs operating on gas and coal, the share of the main sectors of GRP). As a result of evaluating the models for the region-averaged node prices, the differences in average prices, weekly price dynamics, the effect size of holidays, heating degree-days and volumes of industrial production on prices between regions were explained. Analysis of node prices based on regional maps makes it possible to detect weaknesses in the infrastructure of the electric power industry and regions with anomalous dynamics of electricity prices.