The Impact of a Market Maker in an Electricity Market

Electricity retailers in an electricity market use over-the-counter (OTC) contracts, or bilateral, and spot market purchases to meet the energy demands of their users. In some markets, OTC contracts face issues with price discrimination and accessibility. This study reveals some inefficiencies of OTC contracts in Colombia that expose regulated users—approximately 70% of the national demand—to market risk. This risk is aggravated by the current tariff design. To mitigate these inefficiencies, this article proposes the incorporation of a market maker that will improve the liquidity of existing energy futures in the country. These futures are mechanisms that the retailers could implement to hedge their demand and reduce the adverse effects of market risk. The characteristics of the market maker and a quantitative analysis of its impact are developed in this paper. While the characterization of the problem with its solution is developed with Colombian data, the conceptual framework could be extended to other countries that are concerned about how energy users are being affected by increases in tariffs due to high exposure to spot market price volatility.