Price-based demand response (PBDR) has recently been attributed great economic but also environmental potential. However, the determination of its short-term effects on carbon emissions requires the knowledge of marginal emission factors (MEFs), which compared to grid mix emission factors (XEFs), are cumbersome to calculate due to the complex characteristics of national electricity markets. This study, therefore, proposes two merit order-based methods to approximate hourly MEFs and applies it to readily available datasets from 20 European countries for the years 2017-2019. Based on the resulting electricity prices, MEFs, and XEFs, standardized daily load shifts were simulated to quantify their effects on marginal costs and carbon emissions. Finally, by repeating the load shift simulations for different carbon price levels, the impact of the carbon price on the resulting carbon emissions was analyzed. Interestingly, the simulated price-based load shifts led to increases in operational carbon emissions for 8 of the 20 countries and to an average increase of 2.1% across all 20 countries. Switching from price-based to MEF-based load shifts reduced the corresponding carbon emissions to a decrease of 35%, albeit with 56% lower monetary cost savings compared to the price-based load shifts. Under specific circumstances, PBDR leads to an increase in carbon emissions, mainly due to the economic advantage fuel sources such as lignite and coal have in the merit order. However, as the price of carbon is increased, the correlation between the carbon intensity and the marginal cost of the fuels substantially increases. Therefore, with adequate carbon prices, PBDR can be an effective tool for both economical and environmental improvement.
The interconnected European Electricity Markets see considerable cross-border trade between different countries. In conjunction with the structure and technical characteristics of the power grid and its operating rules, the corresponding commercial flows translate into actual physical flows on the interconnection lines. From the interplay of different physical, technical, and economic factors thus emerge complex spatiotemporal power flow patterns. Using Principal Component Analysis, in this contribution hourly time-series of cross-border physical flows between European countries in 2017 and 20…
The proposed open-source Power Market Tool (POMATO) aims to enable research on interconnected modern and future electricity markets in the context of the physical transmission system and its secure operation. POMATO has been designed to study capacity allocation and congestion management (CACM) policies of European zonal electricity markets, especially flow-based market coupling (FBMC). For this purpose, POMATO implements methods for the analysis of simultaneous zonal market clearing, nodal (N-k secure) power flow computation for capacity allocation, and multi-stage market clearing with adapti…
The article covers electricity demand shift effects due to COVID-19 shutdowns in various European countries. We utilize high-dimensional regression techniques to exploit the structural breaks in demand profiles due to the shutdowns. We discuss the findings with respect to coronavirus pandemic progress and regulatory measures of the considered countries.
In September 2018 EirGrid launched the new electricity market. These new market arrangements integrate the all island electricity market with European electricity markets, making optimal use of cross border transmission assets. Ireland operates three operational HVDC interconnectors: Moyle, East-West, and Greenlink and one in development Celtic interconnector which connect Ireland to Scotland, Wales, and France respectively. Irish market operator, EirGrid, can maximize their operational profit by using the price difference in these electricity markets. We propose a profit maximization modellin…
The implementation of electricity markets based on locational marginal pricing in a multi-settlement process has allowed wholesale competition, with pricing mechanisms that incentivize the optimal allocation of generation, transmission, and demand-response resources. While efficiency and reliability gains have been achieved in the US at a regional level, the lack of adequate inter-regional coordination mechanisms has limited broader gains. The shortcomings of cross-border coordination of electricity markets become more apparent as the industry transitions towards higher penetration of renewabl…
The new technologies emerging in the energy sector pose new requirements for both the regulation and operation of the electricity grid. Revised tariff structures and the introduction of local markets are two approaches that could tackle the issues resulting from the increasing number of active end-users. However, a smooth transition from the traditional schemes is critical, thus creating the need for architecture that can be implemented in the current circumstances. This paper proposes a local market concept and a corresponding dynamic tariff system, which can be operated parallel to the curre…
Due to proliferation of energy efficiency measures and availability of the renewable energy resources, traditional energy infrastructure systems (electricity, heat, gas) can no longer be operated in a centralized manner under the assumption that consumer behavior is inflexible, i.e. cannot be adjusted in return for an adequate incentive. To allow for a less centralized operating paradigm, consumer-end perspective and abilities should be integrated in current dispatch practices and accounted for in switching between different energy sources not only at the system but also at the individual cons…
Over the last few decades, electricity markets around the world have adopted multi-settlement structures, allowing for balancing of supply and demand as more accurate forecast information becomes available. Given increasing uncertainty due to adoption of renewables, more recent market design work has focused on optimization of expectation of some quantity, e.g. social welfare. However, social planners and policy makers are often risk averse, so that such risk neutral formulations do not adequately reflect prevailing attitudes towards risk, nor explain the decisions that follow. Hence we incorp…
Securing an adequate supply of dispatchable resources is critical for keeping a power system reliable under high penetrations of variable generation. Traditional resource adequacy mechanisms are poorly suited to exploiting the growing flexibility and heterogeneity of load enabled by advancements in distributed resource and control technology. To address these challenges this paper develops a resource adequacy mechanism for the electricity sector utilising insurance risk management frameworks that is adapted to a future with variable generation and flexible demand. The proposed design introduce…
