Price dynamics among U.S. electricity spot markets

Combining recent advances in causal flows with time series analysis, relationships among 11 U.S. spot market electricity prices are examined. Results suggest that the relationships among the markets vary by time frame. In contemporaneous time, the western markets are separated from the eastern markets and the Electricity Reliability Council of Texas. At longer time frames these separations disappear, even though electricity transmission between the regions is limited. It appears the relationships among markets are not only a function of physical assets (such as transmissions lines among markets), but by similar and dissimilar institutional arrangements among the markets.