Capture Analysis

We have developed the analysis package for solar and wind investors, power purchase agreement (PPA) counterparties, originators, marketers, and banks that finance renewables. The service consists of actuals and forecasts of generic capture prices, profile deltas, baseload power price and production (generation) curves for solar and wind present in the Insight portal, and via our API service.

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Generic Capture Prices

Solar and Wind capture prices for the bidding areas throughout Central Europe, Iberia, UK and the Nordics (some products are region specific, check below for details)

API Downloadable

All data can downloaded via the API, straight to your models via our signature API

Long Term Outlook

The capture costs provide an outlook that accompany our quarterly Price Long Term Power Reports, covering the next decades

What does the Capture Price Analysis Product Cover?

The product presents model-based calculations of the captured revenue and costs for the renewable generation. The internal weather model serves as the input for the overall generation profile of the renewables across different countries. When comparing the capture price with the simulated base-load area prices, the net results for the generic profile deltas (previously known as capture costs) can be computed.

All existing and planned generation sources year on year are included for 1) the total of onshore and offshore wind power sources and 2) solar generation sources.

The product consists of the curves for capture prices, profile deltas and for the Nordic regions, [tech]-income curves. The definition of the curves are as follows:

  • [Tech]-income curves are the product of generation of the indicated technology and its corresponding prices. It represents the overall revenue expected by the technology at every time period. Only available for Nordic regions.
  • Capture Price is defined as the revenue captured by the indicated technology per unit of energy generation. It is calculated by dividing the overall income of the technology by the total generation in the specified time period.
  • Profile Deltas is defined as the difference between the capture price of the indicated technology and the baseload power price on the market. It provides a measure of how the technology compares to the marginal plant of the market zone.
    • Profile Deltas = Capture Price - Baseload Power Price

The power price forecasts are based on Volue Insight’s quarterly Long Term Power report for both the Nordic and the Continental regions. Because of this, subscribers to the Capture Price are required access to the report. It is important to note that Volue Insight is also in the process of extending the capture price analysis up to 2050 and increasing its geographic coverage in the next quarters.

What time frame is covered and with what granularity?

Currently, the product covers the time frame 2022 to 2038, with plans to extend to 2045 and to 2050.

The available simulated data series include all the weather scenarios from 1986 to 2015, with calculations of average results also available.

The calculations are made in an hourly resolution, with aggregation to monthly, quarterly, and yearly resolution. The API contains base-load prices in hourly resolution, profile deltas and capture prices in the aggregated resolution for all weather scenarios while for Central Western Europe the weather normal results are also available.

What price areas and technology do you cover?

The following image presents the different capture costs provided for the different bidding areas throughout Europe:

23 01 Capture Cost Areas

What is the Basis for The Nordic Long-Term Model?

Volue Insight’s long-term price model simulates the Nordic hydropower system, and produces forecasts for price and production, alongside exchanges on all interconnectors in the Nordic power system. The underlying model is the SINTEF EMPS model, more on this can be found on the SINTEF website:

https://www.sintef.no/en/software/emps-multi-area-power-market-simulator/

This model is used by all the major hydro producers in Nord Pool and is considered the best simulation tool for hydro power plants. It is also the only tool supported by Noregs vassdrags- og energidirektorat (NVE) with regular updates of waterflow statistics, and a full description of all the Norwegian hydro power units, including dams, pumps, run of river and reservoir production units.

Long-term power price simulations, with weekly resolution, are the basis for the forecasted prices. For the Nordic regions, the data is converted from weekly to hourly resolution using the hourly national residual load calculations (power consumption minus the sum of wind and solar generation). The spread of price variations is based on the forecasted price variations as a function of the residual load variations. Through this, the expected changes for the future years on all fundamental parameters are included in the simulations. It is key for the volatility within the model to increase when calculating future hourly prices.

What is the Basis for The Continental Long-Term Model?

Volue Insight’s long-term price model simulates the continental power system, and produces forecasts for price and production, alongside exchanges on all interconnectors between the countries. the underlying model is the Energy Exemplar's Plexos model, more on this can be found on the Energy Exemplar website:

https://www.energyexemplar.com/plexos

What data is used as input to the model?

Volue Insight’s quarterly long-term power report covers the input data for the price simulations. As well as this, fuels and emissions prices, power balance development for all relevant countries, and other relevant data input are illustrated in the report.

How is the data structured?

Data related to the Capture Price Analysis is stored in the API under the following curve name formats:

  • For EMPS regions
    • pri {area} {technology} profile-deltas weather-years-extended emps ltp {scenario} €/mwh cet {frequency} f
    • pri {area} {technology} capture-price weather-years-extended emps ltp {scenario} €/mwh cet {frequency} f
  • For Plexos regions
    • pri {area} {technology} profile-deltas weather-years-extended ltp {scenario} €/mwh cet {frequency} f
    • pri {area} {technology} capture-price weather-years-extended ltp {scenario} €/mwh cet {frequency} f

For Nordic regions the scenarios available are base, high and low while for the continental region, the scenarios available are base and low only. For all curves the accepted frequency values are monthly ('m'), quarterly ('q') and yearly('y'). All combination of frequency and region is available in the API.

For technology, the accepted values in the curve are 'spv' for solar, 'wnd' for wind (for countries which have no split of offshore and onshore wind), 'wnd offshore' for offshore wind and 'wnd onshore' for onshore wind. Not all combination for country and technology is available.

The curves are tagged instance curves, meaning they have both tags and instances that the user can manually change. The tags refer to the weather-year for which the capture price is calculated. The tags which have data populated correspond to the 1986-2015. The instances refer to the quarterly report release and will be updated once every 3 months.

If you are new to the Insight API, you can watch the tutorial videos here.

How is the data visualized?

The data is available on the Volue App under the tab "Capture Analysis". While there are differences between the data presented in the Nordic region and the Central Western European Region, most elements of the charts presented are very similar.

The abbreviated legends utilized are CP, PD and PP which stand for Capture Price, Profile Deltas and Power Price, respectively. The Weather scenarios consists of weather years between 1986 and 2015, including both.

The Nordic pages have separate graphs for capture prices, profile deltas, income and production for 3 scenarios, Base, High and Low. All of which have their respective weather scenarios depicted. These scenarios can be navigated to using the respective buttons present at the top of the page.

Why do the different resolutions of the Profile Deltas curves do not average to same number?

The annual averages of capture price and baseload power price forecasts are close to the monthly and quarter resolution, with the deviation being the result of difference in number of hours in different months/quarters.

This expectation is not true for Profile Deltas, which can deviate significantly in different resolutions. This stems from the Profile Deltas formula. Capture Prices, that used in the formula contains different generation weights in different periods. Power Price forecast is not directly dependent on renewable generation in its calculation. You can compare the same months and quarters between different years but if you try to make an average of the monthly Profile Delta, you will not get the same result as the yearly Profile Delta as you need to volume weight every hour over the period to get the final results.

The use-case of different resolutions of Profile Delta: annual ones are designed for investors and banks, whereas shorter resolutions are for traders/marketers of renewables. Monthly and Quarterly Delta Profiles can also be used to compare similar products in different years.

In October 2022, the Council of the EU adopted a Regulation (2022/1854) that caps the market revenues of the renewables to 180€/MWh. How is it implemented in your capture prices and deltas calculation?

The Council regulation is a general policy guideline to the EU member states, and it allows for them to adopt technology-specific caps. Therefore, we did not implement the 180€/MWh cap in the standard capture prices product. You can, however, test different renewable technology-specific caps if you subscribe to the Long-Term Analysis 'Base' (just average) or 'Premium' (30 weather scenarios + average) products. Subscription to these products give access to the hourly long-term price forecast and renewable energy generation API curves, which you can cap after downloading.

Questions regarding this subject?

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