Market analysis and scenarios

The European energy crisis is putting the price of electricity in the focus of public attention. But it is not just the shortage of raw materials that requires a new look at electricity markets. The ongoing decentralization of generation with volatile energy sources on the one hand, and an increasing flexibilization of demand on the other, are significantly changing electricity pricing. By modeling the price effect of renewable feed-in on a European level, we are able to adequately reflect all factors that are important for the electricity price and thus provide you with a realistic and comprehensible picture of the electricity markets, both in the short and long term. If necessary, we take account of uncertainties in the development of framework conditions with a suitable scenario framework. With our electricity price forecasts on an hourly basis, we support your investment decisions, your planning of power plant deployment, or your consumption optimization with demand-side management (DSM).

Since the introduction of the European Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS) in 2005, power plant emissions have been a cost component of electricity generation. While their share in total costs was still manageable in the early years, CO2 allowance prices have increased significantly in recent years and are now essential for determining the merit order in the European power plant park. A forward-looking certificate procurement strategy has thus become an important factor influencing the economic success of conventional power plants. We have extensive technical and economic information on power plants in Europe and can provide you with a well-founded forecast of the future CO2 price path up to 2050 based on our block-sharp modeling. This way, we make a valuable contribution to your investment planning, your procurement strategy or your power plant deployment planning.

The energy transition is based to a large extent on solar and wind, two energy sources which are not always available. The volatile and not fully predictable generation profile of these feeders is a challenge for the reliability of the power system in Europe. This can be well observed in the increasing use of balancing power. In recent years, a number of market design reforms in Europe’s balancing energy markets have led to decreasing barriers to entry and increasing competition. To forecast control energy requirements and prices in the European internal electricity market, we use specially developed simulation models and indicators that have already been proven in extensive research projects. For your successful positioning on the balancing energy markets, we qualitatively analyze the key push and pull factors for the future development of balancing energy requirements and the supply side. We quantify potentials, costs and revenues of a flexibilization of your existing plant portfolio as well as investments in new technology options.

The landscape of power plants and facilities in the German and European energy systems is undergoing a profound transformation process. The energy transition is characterized by the transition from centralized feed-in by large power plants to decentralized generation systems: Instead of a conventional large-scale power plant, thousands of small-scale renewable plants are being built, whose locations are based on optimal regional conditions such as weather conditions or land availability.

With our well-founded regionalization models and tried and tested expertise, we can forecast the future regional distribution of expansion as well as the hourly feed-in of renewable energies. Our calculations include high-resolution weather data, a regionalized database of existing plants, and an innovative area potential analysis. In combination with our European electricity market models, we forecast scenario-based developments that are economically rational and show the optimal way to expand renewable energy:

• conventional power plant park
• sector coupling technologies (e-mobility, power-to-heat and power-to-gas/hydrogen)
• flexibilization of demand in line with the energy transition

This makes us the ideal partner to support your network expansion plans, your power plant investments or your sales.

The energy transition is fundamentally changing the nature of our electricity consumption. The use of classic standard load profiles in power plant assessment, network planning or sales has become outdated. Our forecasts for hourly load and consumption take into account the increasing spread of electric mobility, heat pumps and air-conditioning and can map current flexibilization trends such as vehicle-to-grid or PV home storage. A comprehensive geodatabase allows us to depict regional conditions in detail (weather, existing buildings, large consumers). This is how our realistic analyses form a sound basis for your corporate strategy and for upcoming investment decisions.

The strong increase of power generation by wind and solar makes an estimation of the relative market value of renewable energy compared to conventional power plants indispensable for an adequate assessment of risks.

With our stochastic energy system model SESAM we forecast the market value factors of wind and solar power and thus provide you with precise support for the valuation of power purchase agreements (PPA). We draw on our extensive asset and weather databases to provide a range of market value factors depending on weather conditions.