Dynamic pricing and strategic retailers in the energy sector: a multi-leader-follower approach

Publikation: Beitrag in FachzeitschriftForschungsartikelBeigetragenBegutachtung

Beitragende

  • Giorgia Oggioni - , University of Brescia (Autor:in)
  • Alexandra Schwartz - , Fakultät Mathematik (Autor:in)
  • Ann-Kathrin Wiertz - , Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (Autor:in)
  • Gregor Zöttl - , Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (Autor:in)

Abstract

We consider strategic retail pricing in markets, where retail companies buy commodities at fluctuating wholesale prices and resell them to final consumers by applying dynamic retail tariffs. This is of especially large relevance in the context of energy markets where substantial wholesale price fluctuations are observed. Policy makers currently foster the introduction of such dynamic tariff schemes. From a modelling point of view, we propose a multi-leader-follower problem to investigate the implications of strategic retail pricing and we compare the impacts of implementing dynamic tariffs on retailers and final consumers. Our analysis tackles different aspects: first, we formulate the model and provide theoretical results. Second, we develop algorithms, which solve the multi-leader-follower problem and allow us to characterize the resulting market equilibria. Third, we calibrate and solve our framework based on data of the German retail electricity market for the years 2020 and 2021. This allows us to quantitatively assess the impact of introducing real time prices on retailers’ profits and customers’ benefits. As our results show, dynamic real-time pricing on the one hand typically increases market efficiency, which confirms previous results obtained without the explicit consideration of strategic behavior. On the other hand, however, as a novel aspect, dynamic real-time pricing turns out to significantly reduce equilibrium profits in case of strategic firms. This effect is especially large in environments with strongly fluctuating wholesale prices.

Details

OriginalspracheEnglisch
Seiten (von - bis)255-272
Seitenumfang18
FachzeitschriftEuropean Journal of Operational Research
Jahrgang312
Ausgabenummer1
PublikationsstatusVeröffentlicht - 1 Jan. 2024
Peer-Review-StatusJa

Externe IDs

Scopus 85166350027
Mendeley 4b40e195-5cdf-38f9-ae18-4b84a09388d4

Schlagworte

Schlagwörter

  • Dynamic tariffs, Multi-leader-follower, OR in energy, Pricing, Retailers

Bibliotheksschlagworte