Marta Marmiroli

Trade-off analysis of CO2 versus cost by multi-objective unit commitment

In response to the Kyoto protocol, the European Union (EU) introduced the Emission Trading Scheme (ETS), which adopts ‘cap-and-trade’ market mechanism for CO2 emission trading. In this scheme, the emission allowances are allocated to each industrial installation and companies can buy and sell their allowances. In the electric power sector, the development of decision-making methods concerning emission trading is becoming increasingly important. For this reason, we focus our attention on the trade-off analysis between CO2 and cost for the unit commitment problem. The marginal cost of CO2 reduction can be obtained when the combination of generators and the fuel prices are decided. In this paper, we present an approach of trade-off analysis between CO2 emission and cost for unit commitment problem, which is based on the decommitment procedure of unit commitment to obtain Paretooptimal curves of cost versus CO2 emission. The method is tested on the 10-unit 24-hour model.

Operating independent power plants in japanese market: From contract management to real-time operations

In the last few years, several projects of new independent power plants were proposed and many of them are now concluded in Japan. The increase of investment in the power sector and in particular in the development of new power plants is consequence of the new regulation of the electricity industry. An independent power plants operator can choose among several types of contract: forward and spot market, over the counter contracts with retailers and utilities, retail market; in this way, it is possible to find the best contract portfolio that maximize the company profit.

Ensuring reliable system operation in market environment: The Japanese approach

To ensure the system reliability in a deregulated environment, Japan chooses to strictly manage the transactions among control areas and to implement a strong congestion management approach. This paper describes the basic rules that are executed in the daily operation by transmission users and system operators. The authors focus on the points of the management approach adopted and on how it is important to release some points to ensure reliable operations.

Novel Continuous Auction Algorithm with Congestion Management for the Japanese Electricity Forward Market

In an electricity market, the spot market is normally integrated with a forward or future market. The advantage of the forward market is to allow the market participants to deal in a part or the whole trading portfolio at a fix price in advance and to avoid risk associated to the uncertain price of the spot market. Japan has introduced a continuous auction base forward market from April 2005. This paper analyzes the Japanese forward market rules and operations, and introduces a new algorithm that may improve the efficiency of the market itself. The proposed algorithm enables us to give consideration to the specific characteristics of the power system and to integrate them in the auction mechanism. The benefits of the proposed algorithm are verified on an electronic simulation platform and the results described in this paper.