Fabian Grote

Modeling of electricity pricing in European market simulations

The increasing share of renewable energies as well as the age structure of the thermal generation stack lead to big changes in the European energy system. This paper describes a method for determining market prices for electricity based on the cost-minimal European power plant dispatch and different mark-ups. Thus, the influences of these mark-ups on simulated prices are estimated. Exemplary results are shown for Germany for a backtesting scenario of the year 2014 and a future scenario for the year 2024. The results are compared to historical price patterns and show a better match with the historic prices, but also still room for improvement.

Agent-based price simulation of the German wholesale power market

Recent and future changes in the European power generation system have a big impact on the dispatch of hydraulic and thermal generation units and on the power market. Therefore, this paper investigates the simulation of realistic spot market prices by taking into account agent bidding behavior. An agent-based market simulation method is presented and benchmarked against historic prices of the year 2012 on the German wholesale power market. Simulating cost based bidding strategies enable the model to simulate realistic price curves as well in medium price as in peak price situations.

Incorporating long-term uncertainties in generation expansion planning

Due to ambitious climate targets, an upcoming change from fossil-fueled to renewable power generation is expected. As a consequence of the unpredictable nature of relevant influence factors, further development of the generation system is clouded by uncertainties. Under these circumstances, the future development path remains vague. Hence, this paper describes a method to determine the development path of the generation system considering all relevant uncertainties. The importance of incorporating uncertainties as an unavoidable factor in the planning process is demonstrated by exemplary investigations covering the European generation system. The results show that the developed method is better capable of effectively handling uncertainties in generation expansion planning in comparison with less sophisticated models.