Spatial dependencies of wind power and interrelations with spot price dynamics

•Simulation model for wind power and spot prices including their interrelations.•Spatial dependence structures of wind power are captured by copulas.•The market value of wind turbines is strongly influenced by the dependence structure.•Many locations face upper tail dependencies that adversely impact their market value.•The effect amplifies for increasing levels of wind power penetration.

Wind power has seen strong growth over the last decade and increasingly affects electricity spot prices. In particular, prices are more volatile due to the stochastic nature of wind, such that more generation of wind energy yields lower prices. Therefore, it is important to assess the value of wind power at different locations not only for an investor but for the electricity system as a whole. In this paper, we develop a stochastic simulation model that captures the full spatial dependence structure of wind power by using copulas, incorporated into a supply and demand based model for the electricity spot price. This model is calibrated with German data. We find that the specific location of a turbine – i.e., its spatial dependence with respect to the aggregated wind power in the system – is of high relevance for its value. Many of the locations analyzed show an upper tail dependence that adversely impacts the market value. Therefore, a model that assumes a linear dependence structure would systematically overestimate the market value of wind power in many cases. This effect becomes more important for increasing levels of wind power penetration and may render the large-scale integration into markets more difficult.