Weather conditions are strongly linked to electricity prices, as they directly influence electricity production from renewable sources. Rapid weather changes can cause significant fluctuations in electricity generation, which in turn requires other available power plants to compensate for the shortfall. Understanding electricity price trends throughout the day is extremely important, as it enables better planning and coordination of power plant production. By accurately forecasting price movements, we can optimize production, increase system efficiency, and reduce costs.
The future electricity price curve, based on currently known prices, provides key insights into expected trends and changes in the energy market. This curve is based on forecasts of various power plant outputs, demand, and the influence of weather conditions. The purpose of this thesis is to analyze electricity price movements in the German market, considering the expected growth trend of new renewable energy power plants. We focused on the impact of the annual increase in solar power plants in Germany, their effect on electricity prices, and the expected trend of intra-day price curve expansion in the future with additional solar power plants in the system. The thesis reviews and summarizes existing literature to identify the main factors affecting the price curve. The objective of this research was to develop a model for calculating and visualizing the future electricity price curve, demonstrating the impact of new solar power plants on electricity prices. The price curve modeling was based on realized electricity prices in Germany. Using samples of typical days, we analyzed how holidays and bridge days (days between a holiday and a weekend) affect electricity price changes due to lower consumption.
For the price curve calculation, real-time data was used, prioritizing products with shorter time horizons. The model was developed and analyzed in Excel and tested on real data obtained from the EEX (European Energy Exchange). The analysis showed that the shape of the price curve has changed over the years. Due to the increasing number of solar power plants, prices during summer months and sunny hours are becoming lower, while peak prices are rising higher over time.
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