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By Ryan Wiser, Andrew Mills, Todd Levin, Audun Botterud

The impacts of wind and solar on wholesale power markets in the United States have been limited so far. However, the impact will change as the penetration of variable renewable energy (VRE) increases.

Wholesale power prices and the composition and operation of the bulk power system in the United States have witnessed changes in recent years, and concern has grown in some quarters about the effects of VRE on these trends. The U.S. Department of Energy’s “Staff Report to the Secretary on Electricity Markets and Reliability” addressed this concern, but within a much broader context. The study focused on thermal-plant retirements and reliability, and placed a spotlight not only on growth in VRE but also on the effects of other contemporaneous trends such as declining natural gas prices, limited load growth, and regulatory pressures.

As input into the DOE Staff Report, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and Argonne National Laboratory prepared a study (recently made available publicly, here) that focused on the degree to which growth in VRE has impacted wholesale power prices and bulk power system assets to date and how this may change in the future. In the noted report, we did not analyze impacts on specific power plants, instead focusing on national and regional trends. The issues addressed are highly context-dependent, and analyzing the impacts of VRE is complex. Nonetheless, while more analysis is warranted—including additional location-specific assessments—several high-level findings emerged from our study.

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