Marketing wind power on electricity wholesale markets - an analysis of different options

Feed-in tariff schemes for promoting electricity from renewable energy sources are uncoupled from electricity wholesale markets and therefore even attract investors from non-energy sectors and private initiatives. After the supporting period these actors generally have to trade their electricity on conventional markets. For wind energy marketing options are limited due to its intermittent characteristic, which imposes a challenge especially for small players. The core objective of this paper is therefore to assess the market value of wind power for different marketing option within a case study in Austria. Special emphasis is placed on options for short-term wind power forecasting. The results show, that an optimised marketing of wind power can even be realised within decentralised structures i.e. for moderate levels of aggregation of wind sites. Furthermore the market integration can be improved considerably by implementing continuous Central European day-ahead market as a first step (following the case of the Nord Pool). Under such a regulatory framework the added value of wind forecasts is even considerable when applying simple forecast approaches.