Analysis of the Czech intraday electricity market during Covid-19 pandemic from the multifractal perspective

Abstract

This paper investigates a progress of the maturity of the Czech intraday electricity market during the COVID-19 pandemic by employing the multifractal analysis. Our results indicate that since intraday electricity returns display multifractal property originating both from long-range correlations and fat-tailed distribution, a sole use of the Hurst exponent is not sufficient, and multifractality characteristics should be used. The quantities describing a multifractal behavior indicate in some periods higher stage of market development operating on short temporal scales compared to the larger temporal scales, especially the MLM index. In some periods, they are in close agreement with the Hurst approach (e.g., July 2020). Moreover, the ADL models indicate a positive association of the Hurst exponent on short temporal scales with its lagged values and new cases of the COVID-19. On short temporal scales, the rate of new COVID-19 cases was positively related to the strength of multifractality, i.e., smaller degree of maturity, both by singularity spectrum width and MLM index. We found a nonlinear relationship between the government stringent policy and the Hurst exponent on long temporal scales, singularity spectrum width and the MLM index on short temporal scales, indicating that the loose anti-COVID policies are associated with more mature market and vice versa. On the contrary, on its long counterpart, the relationships are weaker and opposite in signs.