Jorge Barrientos

Adaptive Energy Management System for Self-consumption in Productive Processes

Productive processes are the largest consumers in power systems. The energy required by these processes is usually supplied by the power grid with its associated high operative costs. In this work, we propose a methodology to design energy management systems for self-consumption in productive processes with non-conventional local energy resources. Our goal is to maximize the use of the local energy resources to reduce the amount of energy contracted with the service supplier, and consequently to reduce production costs of the process. This methodology includes a robust-optimization-based energy management strategy to include power variability through the generation of a finite number of possible future scenarios of uncertain variables such as power demand and power from non-conventional energy sources. It allows improving the performance of the power supplies as our simulation results show.

Opportunities for seasonal forward contracts in the Colombian electricity market

A characteristic feature of electricity prices in countries that highly depend on their hydrology resources is their great volatility. Therefore, it is expected that market participants enroll in forward and bilateral electricity contracts to reduce their risk and hedge from price volatility. Bearing in mind the seasonality of water resources in Colombia it is sensible to think of an energy contracting mechanism that would take advantage of it. Such mechanism is the so called seasonal forward contract that would provide lower energy prices during the rainy season so that customers (such as energy intensive industries) are encouraged to increase their demand, leading to a scenario that would benefit both, generators and consumers. This paper presents a review on electricity prices and their relationship with hydrology as well as a discussion over the opportunities on seasonal forward contracting in the Colombian electricity market and its potential advantages.