Governments across Asia and the Pacific and globally are implementing increasingly ambitious renewable energy targets. Installing wind farms and solar parks is part of the challenge of achieving these goals. Another, more technically complex task is ensuring that electricity supply systems can accommodate a high share of wind and solar energy. Post-COVID-19 fiscal stimulus packages offer a crucial opportunity to invest in renewable energy infrastructure to address these needs.

This virtual workshop by the Asian Development Bank Institute and Stanford University Energy and Sustainable Development Program will examine the challenges of integrating high shares of variable renewable energy into electricity markets. Participants will play the role of electricity generation companies in a web-based game that includes three modules.

The first module will cover the basic functioning of wholesale electricity markets, including how the exercise of market power can make them less cost-effective. The second module will discuss how forward contracting for electricity can discourage generators from attempting to exercise market power and how this could prevent market blow-ups. The third module will explore how electricity markets will look different in a high-renewables world and how forward contracting can ensure resource adequacy.