The Investor's Behavior in Competitive Korean Electricity Market

This paper describes the mechanism for new investment to appear in waves of boom and bust causing alternative periods of over and under supply of electricity in Korean market. A system dynamics model was developed to describe the dynamic behavior of new investment in Korean market. The simulation results show the boom and bust cycle in the new investments. When the market price is high, investors decide to build new power plants. However, it takes some delay time to complete new power plants. When the new power plants are being added into the grid, the supply increases and the wholesale price begins to decrease. This causes the cancellation of new power plant or delay the construction. This mechanism causes the boom and bust cycle in new investment.