Modeling the Effect of Macroclimatic Events on River Inflows in the Colombian Electricity Market

This paper models the influence of Oceanic Nino Index on the monthly river inflows to the wholesale Colombian electricity market. Since about 80% of electricity production is performed using hydraulic plants, the river‑inflow forecasts are an important input for mid‑ and long‑term planning and forecasting. The preferred model is an autorregresive model of order one using the current monthly value of the Oceanic Nino Index where the independent and dependent variables were transformed using the Box‑Cox methodology. Using the available information of the Oceanic Nino Index from 1950 to 2015, our analysis indicates that the values for the total river inflows can reach maximum and minimum values of 224% and 27% of the historical monthly mean, exceeding the maximum and minimum historical values registered during of the existence of the electricity market.