Capture Analysis

The product covers the time frame  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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.