A team of researchers had already been working with electricity price data for years before Russia's invasion of Ukraine, exploring statistics and developing forecasting methods. Now they zero in on how prices in different countries relate and how countries were affected by the energy crisis and address the interdependencies of different markets.
This approach combines statistical physics and network science, which"provide very useful tools to study questions well beyond the traditional realm of physics," said Witthaut."The biggest step is to see the connections." "Remarkably, France and southern Norway saw the strongest increase in electricity prices -- although they do not rely on Russian gas for electric power plants," said Witthaut."The high unavailability of nuclear power plants in France and the operation of new interconnectors from Norway to the continent surely played a role."
The researchers hope their work will strengthen the European perspective in the political debate about electricity markets and prices, because problems like this are best tackled via international cooperation. They expect immediate impacts within the field of electricity price forecasting. "There's an intensive debate about how changes in our electricity mix affect prices and costs," said Witthaut."How does the rise of renewable power affect market prices? How important are nuclear power plants for the market? We can't answer these questions by a simple correlation analysis. Instead, we need statistical tools that can quantify causal effects.