The Valuation of the Electricity Future Contract Under Weather Uncertainty Open Access

This paper is concerned with the effects of weather uncertainty on the electricity future curve. Following the approach used by Lucia and Schwartz (2002), the behavior of the underlying spot price is assumed to consist of two components ‘ a totally predictable deterministic component that accounts for regularities in the evolution of prices and a stochastic component that accounts for the behavior of residuals from the deterministic part. The weather uncertainty is modeled consistently with seasonal outlook probabilities from the CPC (Climate Prediction Center) outlook. For a given realization of temperature, the electricity load can be predicted very accurately by a time series model using temperature and other explanatory variables. Furthermore, if temperature and electricity load are known, the spot price can be predicted as well using the regime switching model with time-varying transition probabilities. The electricity future price can be calculated for the given seasonal probabilities from the CPC outlook. Then the electricity future price can be obtained as the arithmetic average of the one-day electricity future price. The future price reflects clearly the response of the spot price to different weather patterns. As the summer gets warmer, the high price regime is more likely to be realized, and as a result, the future price increases.