Estimating the Volatility of Wholesale Electricity Spot Prices in the US

This paper examines the volatility of wholesale electricity prices for five US markets. Using data covering the period from May 1996 to September 2001, for the California-Oregon Border, Palo Verde, Cinergy, Entergy, and Pennsylvania-New Jersey-Maryland markets, we examine the volatility of electricity wholesale prices over time and across markets. We estimate volatility using a TARCH model to study the differences among markets and the seasonal characteristics of each market. For all markets, we find strong evidence for a downward trend in the ARCH term and a significant negative asymmetric effect over the sample period. We also document important differences among the regional electricity markets not only with respect to wholesale price volatility and seasonal variations, but also with respect to asymmetric properties and persistence of volatility.